Small update, mostly to update to Atherdrift, as well as try out some new cards

Post cubecon update, adding some fun cards, shame to see elspeth go but wanna try gearhulk. Only card specifically from cubecon I saw that I wanted to add was Akawalli, the Seething Tower so maybe soon.

tryin and re-trying some new cards and

Mostly to cut underprofoming or outliers and try new things

Main focus was to give blue/UR decks more effective ways to end the game and to re-buff the red spellslinger deck, also some more green 4 drops to better synergize with the increase of 2 cmc ramp in that color, plus Stoneforge Mystic and Kaldra Compleat (among other things) to give equipment voltron just a little boost and hopefully make that archetype more enticing while drafting. As well as a collection of other cards that I think will pay well and smooth out a few decks.

also cut Oji, the Exquisite Blade for Lavinia, Foil to Conspiracy
and Knight of the White Orchid for Turn to Mist

Major change to the cube

Goals:

• Power up the cube
• Remove double-sided cards
• Remove cards that gunk up the board as much
• Power up single-color commanders
• Have multicolor commanders be more build-arounds

Hello and welcome, this is the fullest version of the cube!!!

This post contains what cards were replaced with what and the cube and why, it will start with commanders and then move to everything else. SO BIG SPOILERS!!!

I will mark some of the carts with like a U or something, that means the card is on its way but I don't have it in my hands. Lez goo

Replaced Frankie Peanuts with The Gaffer. Peanuts is a baller, but Gaffer is gangsta. I wanted this cube to have the life gain be a bit more supported. The cube only has a limited number of spots and it came to Frankie's turn in line. Don't worry I replaced him with other "silver bordered" cards elsewhere, and it is likely he may return.

Replaced Prava of the Steel Legion with Adeline, Resplendent Cathar. Prava is cool but pretty underpowered compared to her fellow white token commanders, Adeline is way more powerful and may turn to Brimaz, King of Oreskos if too good.

Replaced Tergrid, God of Fright with Sauron, the Necromancer Tergrid is still cool, but kind of in an awkward spot where she counters a black archetype, plus I removed a lot of other cards that would help her as a commander, Sauron is dope and helps give black a cool token commander. (imagine populating what you reanimate o.0)

Replaced U Rionya, Fire Dancer with Holga, Relentless Rager. Holga is chill and red was a bit more spell-slinggy and a bit less spell-slinggy than I wanted, and I wanted to shift red support more to the combat step to help its archetypes. Rionya is dope as hell tho, I’d love to build a real commander deck around her one day.

Replaced Starke of Rath with Khârn the Betrayer. Wow. A Warhammer card? In MY cube?? Nah Khârn low key a fire commander that is in a very similar niche as Stark and also helps move red more to the combat step like I am trying to do.

Replaced Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter with Jermane, Pride of the Circus. Jermane is kinda cool and does synergize with some green archetypes, I think he’ll be solid with the numbers I crunched but I am excited to see what he can do. Plus taking tokens away from Green. Is a shame nobody noticed in the first season that this commander was practically a free first-blood point ;)

Replaced Daxos the Returned with Ria Ivor, Bane of Bladehold. Since I have been taking tokens away from a lot of other colors, I wanted to power up some of W/B’s token makers. Plus wanted to pull away from enchantment dependence to a more generalist commander in this slot. Tho I love this Daxos, and would love a commander deck with him at the helm.

Replaced Trelasarra, Moon Dancer with Samwise Gamgee. Since lifegain is getting good support elsewhere, I was glad to swap out some of their commanders to have more variety in what they do. In this case, Trelasarra was SUPER generalist lifegain, so hopefully Building around Sam will be more unique without being super linear. Not sure how much his 2nd ability will be used, but I think it may come up more than one thinks, but not by much.

Replaced Wrexial, the Risen Deep with Cyclonus, the Saboteur. Yeah, Wrexial had the issue I suspected he would, where like the best spells to hit would be in your own colors so in a draft it's less likely people have those colors and CYCLONUS?!?! omg i fel in luv (esp cuz I don't really care for most of the other Transformers cards). When I saw this card and his ass Cyclonus, Cybertronian Fighter I was like wow, this is dope in so many ways that is supported in Blue, Black, and Blue in Black. If you get this guy you could build a very interesting deck I think and it will be fun and strong.

Replaced Uvilda, Dean of Perfection with Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. The deans are dope and I love the red side. But Niv fits with what U/R is trying to do, and of all the Nivs this one rewards you for building around him more distinctly in your deck than the other Nivs.

Replaced Kianne, Dean of Substance with Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres. The deans are dope and I loved both sides, esp as a commander, but it was a bit to weird/difficult to build around compared to other commanders, Ezuri is much easier to build around in his colors and is kinda cool (if you have the default border one I’ll trade you for the ink version).

Replaced Kardur, Doom Scourge with Olivia, Mobilized for War. It hurts to say goodbye to Kardur, but I wanted to beef up B/R self-discard, plus a lot of Kardur-esq abilities were added in Red this update, and I wanted to emphasize those cards with other (non-black) colors, so he kinda held some other colors back. Plus Oliva synergizes better with Black cards, Red cards, and Black and Red cards.

Replaced Ruric Thar, the Unbowed With Jolene, the Plunder Queen. Ruric is cool, but kinda random in the cube, Jolene is cool and might add the song about her to the playlist, and emphasizes R/G archetypes/role in the cube.

Replaced Rubinia Soulsinger with Falco Spara, Pactweaver. Falco is cool and fits more into its colors in the cube more than Rubina. Rubina is just kind of random and doesn’t really help you build your deck.

Replaced Mathas, Fiend Seeker with Kroxa and Kunoros. Mathas is dope, but he’s kinda random and does not synergize that well with the colors he’s in. The duo helps more cards in its colors in different ways, such as Self-discard and keyword shenanigans.

Replaced Kathril, Aspect Warper with Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant. Bilbo fits into the colors he's in just a bit more in ways that are different from the other Abzan commanders. Kathril is dope as hell, I’d love to build a deck around him. But I think to work consistently (esp after some other changes) he needs to have a lot more support than I am willing to give him.

Replaced Haldan, Avid Arcanist (& Pako, Arcane Retriever) with The Swarmlord. What? Ain't no way I’m looking at a Warhammer card. But it's true it synergizes better with the other cards in its own colors, such as U/G’s proliferate and U/R car draw emphasis.

Replaced Atla Palani, Nest Tende U with Marisi, Breaker of the Coil. The cat-man fits his colors more, I am trying to put an emphasis on synergistic cards which makes the actual draft portion of the cube more interesting and distinct.

Replaced Gnostro, Voice of the Crags U with Narset, Enlightened Exile. Gnostro is dope, but it’s difficult to make his payoff work in the cube. Narset is strong, but I think she may be solid in the cube, emphasizing you to draft cards that have a low enough CMC, while enabling some of the benefits of casting multiple spells in one turn in the cube.

(non-commanders in comments}

A quick swap out of some cards that I feel are underperforming or don't fit as well in the cube for other cards I own and want to try.

Replaced Chulane, Teller of Tales with Shanna, Purifying Blade, as I feel Shanna plays better with a lot of the other cards, esp as it is hard to find 3-color commanders that play well with the cube in general.

Replaced Stet, Draconic Proofreader with Odric, Blood-Cursed, Stet is fun but seemed never to never be fully utilized, which is a shame as it's sad to see silver-border cards leave the cube. I know some laugh at Odric, but he does play better with more cards in the cube, particularly in Boros, I wish his ability triggered on attack as well (at least for the cube) but I still want to try him out to see how he works.

Replaced Darksteel Myr with Replicating Ring, The myr did have uses, but was very niche, while more mana fixing is better, I think this is the right choice particularly when considering the next big addition I want to make to the cube, and the ring plays better with more cards.

Replaced Farseek for Incubation Druid, still both """restrictive""" ramp in green, but it was difficult to utilize Farseek due to lack of duals, where the druid will synergize with +1/+1 synergies and proliferate (both of which have a presence in green).

Replaced Kazandu Tuskcaller with Unnatural Restoration, The tuskcaller was cool, and it was a shame we haven't been able to see it or its level-up partners really shine yet, but I want to take some of green's ability to make tokens, and the restoration allows for some proliferate and graveyard recursion value and still fits within the same deck archetype.

Replaced Hornet Queen with Fight Rigging, once more trying to take away some of green's token-making ability, plus fight rigging plays better and is just as cool, even though the queen is so iconic.

Replaced Gladecover Scout with Doomskar Warrior, the warrior plays better with more green cards than the scout, especially as Animus of Predation is on the list of cards that might be on the chopping block (or maybe colorshifted ¯_(ツ)_/¯).

Replaced Sixth Sense with Shapers' Sanctuary, the sanctuary is more interactive I feel, and even though the sense is good, want to try and keep those effects to U/B, but we'll see how good the sanctuary is.

Replaced Shivan Meteor with Wild Magic Surge, the surge is a more fun card I feel, and much more playable, and makes for more interesting gameplay in general.

Replaced Kheru Mind-Eater with Hostile Negotiations, the mind-eater is dope as hell, but I'll admit it's a bit outdated as it still has to be on the battlefield to casts the cards its exiles. The negotiations allow for card advantage with some politics, although the mind-eater does play better with more cards in black, it still feels like you will always be just a bit underwhelming.

Replaced Smallpox with Vorpal Sword, Honestly, the sword takes the place in the archetype that the mind-eater (mentioned above) did, as a card that wants a/this creature to hit, and in general plays better with more black cards. Smallpox is just not able to be fully utilized the way I had hoped, particularly as Tergrid, God of Fright is likely one of the next few cards replaced in the cube.

Replaced Vampire Nighthawk with Smuggler Captain, the vampire, although iconic, really is just a value creature (even if arguably plays better with U/B's evasion theme), and feels difficult to really justify a lot of the time. The smuggler is interesting and makes a unique tutor and acts as a "2nd version" of a single card in your deck rather than just getting your best one, and adds some more thinking and action to the drafting part of the cube.

Replaced Prognostic Sphinx with Wiretapping, wiretapping plays better with more cards in blue, and the sphinx, although cool and strong, is competing with a lot of other big creatures in blue, and I wanted to trim down the number of big beasts in blue.

Replaced Sphinx of the Final Word with Nadir Kraken, pretty much the same thing as above, does give some tokens and a powerful value engine to blue, we'll see how strong the kraken is, I fear it may be surprisingly oppressive.

Replaced Foresee with Comparative Analysis, I think the analysis will lead to more interesting lines of play, although you lose the scry 4, you get the potential surge and card draw at instant speed.

Replaced Curious Obsession with Security Bypass, does pretty much the same thing, but the bypass plays much better with other cards in the cube and is less restrictive in gameplay.

Replaced Distainful Stroke with An Offer You Can't Refuse, the offer (the type you cant refuse), I think is a much more interesting (maybe even more powerful) counterspell, and allows for more interaction on both sides of the spell, even though I personally love disdainful stroke, I think this is the right choice.

Replaced On Serra's Wings with Boon-Bringer Valkyrie, the enchantment actually has been deceptively powerful, I was worried it would be mostly useless but often when it hits the table it has a big impact, but I think the angel plays better with more cards and still kinda does the same thing. That being said I don't think being on Serra's wings was particularly oppressive or powerful, so may come back one day.

Replaced Bygone Bishop with Platoon Dispenser, the bishop is a dope card, but felt hard to fully utilize, I think the dispenser will play better in more white decks than the bishop, and still provide the role of card advantage (and a bit more).

Replaced Survival Cache with Cut a Deal, both are card advantage, but cut a deal is more fun for the whole table (also in a pod of 6 that's draw 5 for 3), and does lose some lifegain synergies with other cards in the cube, 3 mana for 4 life and (even if simi-usually) 1-2 cards wasn't that exciting.

Replaced Always Watching with Divine Gambit, white already has a lot of anthems, and I want to encourage white to play tokens more, as well as shine as the removal color in the cube, plus the gambit could make for some interesting plays/politics, with it was an instant though tbh.

Replaced Medomai the Ageless with Oji, the Exquisite Blade, Medomai couldn't really take advantage of white all that well I feel, as well as being incredibly powerful and kinda boring in the cube. Oji will hopefully encourage more interesting deck building, although there aren't really a lot of blue or white creatures he can really take advantage of outside of himself, so we'll see.

Replaced Stitcher Geralf with Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy, Geralf kinda did fuck all for blue beyond filling up the graveyard for some random cards (mostly in other colors), Gale plays much better in general and leads to more interesting lines of play and deckbuilding.

Replaced Trove of Temptation with Hunted Dragon, the trove, although very exploitable, needed such a narrow list of cards in the cube to really take advantage of, and even then it was hard to justify going through the hoops for a slower card that could easily be cut, the dragon plays better with more cards in the cube and can lead to fun politics and such.

Replaced Glory of Warfare with Adult Gold Dragon, the dragon plays better with more cards in the cube, and the glory, although powerful, was kinda uninteresting.

Replaced Reaper King and Jegantha, the Wellspring with Golden Argosy and Standard Procedure, this will make Cromat the only 5 color commander, and add two interesting cards, the boat will add some flicker to all colors making it easier to fit into/build around, and the procedure is an interesting sliver-bordered card that allows for a lot of versatility in all colors.

Replaced the 4 color commanders with single-color cards that will be more useful to the archetype, giving black its planeswalker.

Replaced Sedris, the Traitor King with Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor, Lynde is cool and there are a few curses in the cube, whereas Sedris had very little synergy.

Replaced Eligeth, Crossroads Augur with Iymrith, Desert Doom, once more, Iymerith synergizes better with the archetypes.

Replaced Ethereal Absolution with Dramatic Finale, Ethereal Absolution was pretty strong in all decks, Dramatic Finale is more fit to the black/white archetype and isn't as oppressive in all decks.

Replaced Grenzo, Dungeon Warden with Anje Falkenrath, once more Anje just has more synergy with discard archetype.

Replaced Rayami, First of the Fallen with Ukkima, Stalking Shadow (and Cazur, Ruthless Stalker) fits more in the archetypes Sulti encompasses.

This is part 2 (of likely 3) of the edits, just swapping some cards out for their replacement that I've managed to get thus far. I am also thinking of potentially removing some/all of the decrees.

Ravos, Soultender is a cool, powerful card that plays into some of the sacrifice effects that are in the cube, however, those effects were "meant" to synergize with tokens, which is black/white's main archetype, although he does provide an anthem for the tokens I don't think that's enough, Shadrix Silverquill does all the stuff I wanted Ravos to do but in a more interesting way, I think he will be very fun in the cube and I might make my own Shadrix deck one day.

Elsha of the Infinite fits well into the Jeskai archetype for the cube and can be very powerful, however Gnostro, voice of the crags is a bit more interesting and lets you play into the many cheap spells in those colors, this is the iffiest sitch in my opinion, and is the most likely one to be reversed.

Ulasht, the Hate Seed is cool, but really doesn't fit into the green/red archetype of the cube, sure he synergizes with some green +1/+1 counters but Gruul has no real benefit making tokens, Grand Warlord Radha fits better into the the "combat matters (even if it's not your combat" theme of Gruul, and can be quite powerful with some synergies in the cube.

Izoni, Thousand-Eyed didn't really fit in the cube that well, sure she helped with the black half of black/white tokens to some extent, but didn't really help black/green that much, plus I want to take away some token production in other colors to help make it potentially less prevalent, Varolz, the Scar-Striped helps the black/green +1/+1 archetype better while still interacting with your graveyard, however that means every Golgari commander is 3 or less manna (for better or worse).

X was a fun and interesting card, but in practice seemed a bit clunky for the cube, especially because he didn't help the blue/black evasion archetype that much, Krydle of Baldur's Gate will do just that while still being an option for a cheap commander. (but don't worry, I'm sure X will return in a silver-bordered expansion)

Night Soil was a neet way to instant speed remove creatures from a graveyard for tokens, but I wanted to remove token making abilities from green, Deathgorge Scavenger is more fitting overall in the cube I feel, it fills a similar role as well as synergizing in green/white lifegain, I wish it was a full +1/+1 counter instead of just +1/+1 til end of turn but oh well.

The most inportat change with this update is the new rule “Commanders with only a single color in their color identity or a color identity of colorless that don't already have partner, gain partner, otherwise, all other commanders lose partner” this should hopefully allow for more diverse decks and new cool commander combos to come out.

This is like a part 1 of the edits, these edits will focus mostly on trimming up some 'loose' cards that didn't really fit the archetypes in the cube, it is mostly commanders that will be swapped but there are some other miscellaneous cards.

Trelasarra, Moon Dancer is a much cheaper commander to cast and fits into the green/white lifegain archetype better, matching with the other 2 commanders in those colors. Additionally Tolsimir Wolfblood, although cool and powerful is just a little too generic, as much as I like him token making has proven strong and I will probably be removing some of green's token making ability

Similar to Tolsimir above, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary had a powerful effect but just kinda felt generic, Volo, Guide to Monsters is arguably just as powerful (if not more) and will allow much more of an interesting build around while drafting, especially with 'enter the battlefield' effects and caring about creature type (even pseudo-synergizes well because Human and Wizard are 2 of the most common creature types in the cube)

Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker, what do I say? much like the other two commanders, Ishai is powerful but generic, Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper will fit the white/blue spellslinger deck better, while still maintaining some synergizes with the blue half of blue/green proliferate

You Come to a River is just a more versatile Disperse with the ability to synergize with black/blue evasion much better

Aether Hub can go in more decks as it doesn't have the color identity of The World Tree that makes it super restrictive, and allow more decks an untaped fixing source, as well as adding more targets for blue/green proliferate and will synergize with some of the other energy cards that will probably be added to the cube
Glimmer of Genius will replace Academy Elite as a blue draw source as it just synergizes better with more archetypes (blue/red draw, blue/white spellslinger) as well as maintaining the synergy within blue and blue/green proliferate that the Academy Elite had

Spire Phantasm was a cool draft card, but was at a relatively low power-level for the cube, whereas Docent of Perfection has the potential to be incredibly powerful if left unchecked. Although blue doesn't really care about tokens, it does have the most instants + sorceries, as well as there being a good number of wizards and several wizard commanders, this could be a strong card in the right deck whilst not being oppressive on its own (plus it's just a cool card)

Aether Searcher is a cool draft card but has been underwhelming in practice, the fact that the card it names has to be in your deck/hand is not that strong, considering the card you get has to be playable in your deck in your colors, and the fact that if you already cast that card this game you just get a vanilla 7 mana 6/4, which is very weak compared to the other 6-7 drops. Phyrexian Triniform on the other hand can be a powerful game-ender, although it does synergize with tokens a bit more the 9 mana cost could keep it in check, and ultimately fit better as the top end of the curve for many decks than Aether Searcher ever will

This was way longer than I thought it'd be but these are the first changes of only a few to make the cube more cohesive. more cards will be swapped out, mostly commanders, as well as the fact that the 6 copies of "Open to Alliance" will be swapped with 6 copies of "Braudend Horizons" with the new rules change.