Not a great showing at MV 1 in FDN. The high reprint density doesn't help and the few new cards are interesting but maybe not on the power level of inclusions in this cube.

The one exception is Kellan, Planar Trailblazer and even that lacks the initial bump in survivability that comes from gaining toughness from the first level up...

Hall Monitor has been fine, but on most boards, opponents more than one reasonable blocker.

Here are a pair of initial cards to test. I've got a whole slough of runners-up that I'll likely shuffle in to playtest, but these are the definite changes for now:

Infantry Veteran > Veteran Survivor
Infantry Veteran is fine, but I'm interested in a grower and tuning down Soldiers slightly.

Martyr of Ashes > Hired Claw
Martyr of Ashes is taking a bullet so Bombardment can stick around. They fulfill surprisingly similar functions, but Bombardment is already making more maindecks (in the little testing I've done this cycle). Hired Claw has impressed in LSV videos and helps provide a more aggro spin to the Chonomaton formula.

Blistercoil Weird > Norin, Swift Survivalist
I think Norin has the opportunity to be genuinely great in this environment. We don't have a ton of ETB triggers, but everything is cheap to recast. Blistercoil is always on the fringe and mostly in to supportLegolas's Quick Reflexes, a card maybe not worth the squeeze.

Legolas's Quick Reflexes > Coordinated Clobbering
Writing that last entry persuaded me that it was time for Legolas's to go. Other contenders included Longstalk Brawl and Horrific Assault, but this seems most likely to actually get the job done in this high removal, small creature environment. The tapping is unfortunate, but gives some texture to the experience.

The more I think about this change, the less it makes sense. Switching it back for now, but keeping this card on my radar as something neat to include.

For some reason, I never seriously considered the original Mystery Booster cards for inclusion, so this update covers all of them so far. Many of them feel like Unset cards - more cute than interesting - but a few are solid candidates for inclusion in the cube and don't stray too far from cards that already exist.

Also-rans for this update included: Geometric Weird, Lazier Goblin, and Tenacious Pup.

Champion of the Parish > Champion of the Hareish
The old champ was the only card that cared about humans. Soldiers are by far the more supported kin. The chance to build your own synergies later are just gravy. Tempting to cut Champion of the Perished as well, though that can come later.

Firebolt > Boltfire
Not as strict an upgrade as I initially thought, but still worth a test. Plays really well with Scrabbling Claws.

Sarpadian Simulacrum > Bombardment
Simulacrum wasn't testing that well in a world full of surprisingly large 1 mana plays. Bombardment is cool enough that its worth trying, even if it is weird. It helps that it contains its effect to a single turn. Compare to Molten Vortex. If this turns out to be preferred, I could see cutting that (and maybe finally Groundskeeper though it'd break my heart).

Brave the Wild > Plant a Sapling
I've seen the 3/3 a fair amount, but I think the promise of someday getting an even bigger creature is worth not getting one right now. It's nice that this is a proper 1 drop on both sides.

Funny. I vividly remember making this update, but perhaps it was just in my notebook. A surprising number of relevant cards here, despite the sets tribes being effectively unrepresented in the card pool.

Special shout outs to runners-up like Iridescent Vinelasher and Stocking the Pantry.

Stormchaser's Talent performs a surprisingly similar role to Triton Wavebreaker while also giving you a late game engine.

Blacksmith's Talent is going to be a terror in WR decks, but frankly that deck could use a shot in the arm.

Heartfire Hero is the Heroic creature red never got. At least not without cost... Goblin Lackey isn't really a 1/1 for trade, but I think red can work with the engine-y nature of this.

We cut Dynacharge because the go-wide deck rarely comes together like that.

Pawpatch Recruit is one of surprisingly few offspring cards to really feel relevant. This one is an echo of a bunch of cards that have been cut before, but doubling up for 3 mana seems like it might be the extra bit of oomph this effect needs.

Seedcradle Witch has been around since I took up stewardship of the cube. It's still there, power-level-wise, but I actually want to tone down GW a little and make space for some of the more recent pushed cards to shine.

It's not surprising that a Modern Horizon set would produce a great number of pushed 1 drops with the kind of trinkety, synergistic abilities I am usually looking for. I've made some bitter cuts to try them out, so expect some equalization over the next few months.

Honorable mentions go to Ocelot Pride which would be very fun in a cube that supported lifegain, Revitalizing Repast which would be a great sub for Royal Treatment but I don't want to give GB even more gold cards, and the Landscape cycle, which would be a great fit, but I just don't have teh slots at this smaller size. Now without further ado:

Frodo, Sauron's Bane > Guide of Souls
Frodo was my least favorite Figure of Destiny in a cube swimming with them. Guide of Souls has a little bit of that action, but rewards going wide and not just tall in an interesting way. I'm not interested in supporting energy, but I'm glad to include an energy card that fuels itself.

Legion's Landing > Indebted Spirit
Landing basically always gets cut. I love it, but if my players aren't playing it, then why not try a card that plays well with hammer-time combo cards and helps support aggro.

Helping Hand > Jolted Awake
Much more like Unearth this time. Not coming in tapped is the real key here, though the cycling is obviously nice too.

Hypnotic Grifter > Tamiyo, Inquisitve Student
I'll likely try any of these flip walkers I can, so it was just a matter of what to cut. Grifter is just a hair too expensive to help with the critical phase of making your first few land drops. Tapping out at sorcery speed also doesn't help it function as a wall.

Waterlogged Hulk > Triton Wavebreaker
Descend 8 is a lot. 3U and an island (ideally in yard) is a lot. Triton Wavebreaker maybe actually won't stick long term, but it does a lot in an environment so full of 1/2s you don't want to risk blocking with.

Faerie Dreamthief > Etherium Pteramander
Pteramander actually kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth the same way Champion of the Perished does. It does help artifacts bleed into black though. Dreamthief, for its part, was fine but mostly filler.

Forsaken Miner > Nethergoyf
I'm hesitant to go too far on skeleton's that are cheap to reanimate, since they are so critical to sac decks, but Nethergoyf is weirdly most like one of those cards? Without fetchlands, it'll be tricky to really go off with this, but we do have a reasonable variety of card types in most games.

Great Train Heist > Sarpadian Simulacrum
The least impressive of the spree cards and the most fiddly as well. I'm happy to cut it for a clean design like Simulacrum that supports aggro, acts as removal, and has nice artifact synergy.

Swarm Shambler > Grist, the Hunger Tide
Swarm Shambler is one of what feels like a ton of 1 mana levelers. Grist provides a fun mini game and is just the right kind of powerful for this cube.

Lots of nice cards to test out here. I'm particularly excited about the various spree cards (and am willing to stretch my definition of "played for 1 mana" to accommodate trying them out). Expect more tweaks as I digest these changes and actually get some playtesting in.

Rod proved to be a little too expensive to activate, even in an environment with an immense thirst for manasinks. Final Showdown is our first white boardwipe (!) and the other modes play nicely with key themes as well.

An exchange we don't often get to make: greater manacost for more flexibility. I think this will be a staple for years to come.

Scolding is functional, but feels so much worse than Mental Misstep and Minor Misstep. Three Steps Ahead's might fill in as a counter in a pinch, but I'm most excited about the clone effect.

Specimen kept ending up on the cutting room floor. I think the decks that want that kind of recursive graveyard threat (but not Bloodsoaked Champion or Gravecrawler can use this basically just as well. It's entering straight onto the watch list though...

The card draw! I'm not thrilled about worse Vampiric Tutor, but I'll take it for completing the splashy cycle.

Sadist had served from the earliest days of the cube, but was starting to feel like a worse Chronomaton (which is already kind of fringe tbh). Tinybones is a weird reanimator and mostly just a fun dream to try to make work.

Lackey is being hailed as one of the most overloaded red 1 drops of all time and the harbinger of the new play booster era. I'm not sure it fits with the themes of this cube, but I'm prepared to try it and find out. First strike alone might get it there.

See the Stern Scolding conversation, but for Lightning Bolt. 5 mana is just too much for 4 damage in this environment. It may yet return though if this feels like too few burn spells. In the meantime, Heist is maybe my least favorite of the Spree spells, but still interesting as a weird Dynacharge that sometimes ramps you or wins the game outright. Like Dynacharge, I don't anticipate it really acting as as a trick that often.

I don't think I so much misread Whisperer as just failed to make the leap that high Evidence costs were going to be near impossible in this cube. At least its an easy cut for this weird Divination in green.

I like Convenient Target, but I don't think I like it as much as Escape Velocity and that got cut incidentally a few sets back. Jitte is a fun callback, but its also an equipment that actually plays well with Slippery Bogle, an archetype that has kind of fallen by the wayside as the average creature gets bigger.

Branch was always a placeholder after the great MKM culling of Evolving Wilds effects. Now we get this weird anti-devotion big mana card. I absolutely love it.

Totally forgot to address the land section here.

I'll address the changes in bulk. The scry land cycle was the first set of lands that I purchased exclusively for cubing, so it's a little sad to see them go. For our purposes, the option to put a card into the graveyard is almost strictly upside, though we don't care as much about the basic land types as other cubes do. This change may present an opportunity to reconsider cards with Domain though.

A strictly better Evolving Wilds presents an interesting conundrum for this cube. I find it aesthetically distasteful to run a card AND its strictly better version at the same time, but we had multiple slots allocated to Evolving Wilds-esque effects.

This opens the door for Branch of Vitu-Ghazi. I don't know if this card will stick around, but it provides a sort of one time fixing and is unlikely to dominate the 1 Drop environment in the way a typical man-land might.

I haven't gotten a chance to properly playtest the last couple updates, but there are a few choice cards from MKM to consider. Runner-up shout outs go to Case of the Uneaten Feast if you support a lifegain package and the various Clue equipment (e.g. Candlestick) which feel just on the fringe of playable.

A bit of a like for like trade here. The flying goes a long way here. Still plays great with Darksteel Citadel.

Red cannot be exclusively shock and bolt variants. I like Convenient targets capacity to act as a buff or a removal spell of sorts and I especially like being able to recur it from the graveyard for bonus prowess triggers, etc.

It's possible for there to be too many effects that let you animate a land, but this feels like one of the best of the bunch. Leaving a vulnerable 1/1 around to pop with removal mid combat feels like it adds some play to the effect.

I initially had Natural State earmarked for removal here, but I figured Green could use more play that isn't just flavors of "make a big guy." Long List was something of a pet card (and this might have been the best format for it?) but it's not really worth worrying about during the draft.

I'm not sure if I missed this card back in the LTR days or if I just didn't read it thoroughly enough. I think on many boards, Reflexes might be worse than Battle Glyph, but I always want to lean towards weird combo interactions where I can. This plays great with anything that can untap itself.

It's probably too soon to remove Veteran. It's not underperforming exactly, but it hasn't wowed me. Blistercoil just proposes all sorts of weird stuff you can do with LQR or Viridian Longbow, so let's try it.

I want to support Dispatch because it gives some rewards to the artifacts deck in white and helps provide texture. In practice, it's often just behind the curve because you can just have Swords to Plowshares. Immovable Rod is... not a like-for-like swap, but it does give permanently tap down a creature or give you a manasink if the game goes super late.

Plenty of 1 Drops in Lost Caverns of Ixalan, though it feels like many of them are equipment, and thus competing for extremely competitive slots. Unfortunately the few craft cards available to us are either too unappealing or too expensive (from my perspective). Still, a nice haul here.

Gift was feeling redundant with the more flexible Enlightened Tutor and the hammer time combo decks don't really need that many tutors.

Helping Hand is a little bit worse than the black versions of this effect like Unearth but it does a credible impression and lends valuable longevity to white's gameplan.

Hawk is a powerful card, but often seemed to be cut from the maindeck of even dedicated artifact decks.

Bat isn't as impressive a body, but it wears equipment well and will incidentally provide a few scries along the way.

Tenderfoot has had so many opportunities to impress, but it's always just 1/1 unblockable until your opponent decides to deal with it.

The tapping cost of Warden is non-trivial, but the effect is worth it once you get to 3. You can always tap treasures and equipment to ease the pain some and the card has extremely relevant types.

Not exactly a like-for-like trade, but Siren performs a similar role with a slightly more proactive body. We aren't so hard up for prowess triggers that we need to prioritize that too highly.

I really wanted Hawker to be good, but in a format where Sol Ring is questionable in some decks, Hawker is doubly so. Hulk will likely be a 4/4 vehicle most of the time, but some decks can use the self-mill and very occasionally it might close out a game thru a board stall.

I'm not really sure what I was thinking with Tabby. We have nowhere near the density of auras for it to really shine and the fact that you can't even suit it up really hurts it.

Stalker, on the other hand, is cut from a different cloth. For the low cost of playing permanents and maybe some self mill, you get a steadily growing threat that eventually acts as removal. Extremely excited to try this one out.

Again, not quite like-for-like. Savage Swipe has its targets, but Battle Glyph actually leans into what decks do well in the 1 Drop Cube: cast multiple spells.

An oldie but a goodie. Cataracts has been outshown by Darksteel Citadel in the decks that want that effect.

Thawing Glacier plays well with Brainstorm and the like and gives slower decks an extreme amount of card advantage.

A surprising number of hits here, plus a few cards just shy of the mark. Bargain (as many cubers likely say) doesn't play great here, but the other mechanics are all classic 1drop cube fodder.

I'm sad to see Delver go, but it adds a lot of fiddliness for not that much payout in the contemporary era. Elusive Otter does a lot of the same work in terms of rewarding a spells matter strategy, plus it works with enchantments and artifacts, plus it has an X spell tacked on. I expect this to be a staple.

Every creature that would have been a clean swap for this faerie had already been removed in the great 240-ening. Fading Hope is a borderline card and I doubt I'll miss it. I anticipate Ward 2 being a really sticking point for this. If that's good, the card has legs.

Mostly a testing switch. Flying is not to be under-rated and its something black is always on the lookout for at 1. Duskwalker could close out games by itself, but I don't love color-hosing mechanics.

Entomb is strong in a deck that wants it, but not that much stronger than Vampiric Tutor absent real ways to get mana advantage out of your reanimation. I just don't have space for that many tutors.

Tabby is a speculative include. I think it opens up a weird aggro deck with Rancor and Gryff's Boon plus sacrifice outlets, but that might not actually be the case...

Turns out that decks in the cube just aren't starved for equipment enough to need Beatstick, even if it is quite strong.

Embereth Veteran might not be that much better, but I do want to fit in 2 power where I can. Letting another threat grow once it becomes irrelevant is a nice upside.

Bloodhall Ooze is a house, but there are so many ways to just have a creature that gradually acquires +1/+1 counters at the moment. It may return after some testing.

Brave the Wilds helps green keep it's fixing identity, plus it fits into the Clutch of Current / Rush of Ice deck I insist on supporting.

Treatment isn't strictly better, since some cards care specifically about counters, but in most cases it's an upgrade.

A card much recommended by folks on Lucky Paper Radio, Claws might be the sweetspots for graveyard hate artifact I've been looking for. It'd be nice to interact with at least a touch...

Stitcher's Graft is an old favorite of mine, but it's way down in the equipment power rankings and it's a bleak day when you are using it to get creatures in your yard.

Relatively slim pickings from the Lord of the Rings set. I'm not sufficiently worried about complexity creep (as evidenced by Frodo here), but most of the 1 drops on offer simply didn't beat replacement. This update includes a few new cards and a few old ones that have been riding the bumble.

Chaplain of Alms > Frodo, Sauron's Bane
Chaplain is a real threat in this cube, but presently has the uneasy distinction of being the least interesting card in white. Frodo, on the other hand, provides a novel new wincon for some decks. It may be replaced in time, but I'm intrigued.

Spontaneous Mutation > Stern Scolding
There are enough sacrifice outlets, tap abilities, and other shenanigans in the cube that simply reducing power just isn't enough, even at instant speed. Stern Scolding hits every creature in the cube and continues to reinforce the permission pillar of blue's wedge of the color pie.

Nimble Mongoose > Long List of the Ents
Without a dedicated mill theme, turning on the mongoose felt pretty hit-or-miss. Long List of the Ents generates a lot of value if you are able to build your deck around it, even if it doesn't play well with the cubes strong tribal themes.

Shadowspear > Barrow-Blade
Shadowspear is perhaps a more powerful card, but in practice the 1 additional mana to equip is surprisingly meaningful. I'm testing this out, but I'll see if I miss the trample and lifelink enough to switch back.

Swift Reconfiguration > Dispatch
Reconfiguration was included off of the back of potentially cute interactions with making your utility creatures unkillable artifacts. That interaction rarely came up, so I'm reverting to an oldie-but-goodie that reinforces the artifacts theme in white.

Bubble Snare > Bind the Monster
Since I cut Roost of Drakes, the pressure to keep kicker spells around is dramatically reduced. Bind is strong against a field of creatures that start small and rewards proactively tamping down the scariest long term threats.

Ghost Lantern > Entomb
With multiple reanimate effects in the cube, I thought it might be interesting to use those to enable a more dedicated graveyard strategy. Is this worth it, when you aren't gaining a mana advantage off the reanimation? In any case, Ghost Lantern wasn't seeing play, even if I still think it is a decent piece of equipment.

I've been dissatisfied with the state of the 1 Drop Cube. There are a few reasons why:

1. My playgroup really doesn't support 8 players at the moment. The cube was already kind of awkward at that number, but at 4 players, it's very easy for critical pieces of decks not to turn up.

2. I find myself often tempted to continuously rotate so-so new cards rather than shaking up any archetype by swapping out an old hand.

3. My thoughts on fixing have changed recently. I really want to push the cube towards at least 15% fixing lands. Ideally higher. It's hard to do that without displacing huge numbers of cards.

All of these things lead me to conclude that it's time to shrink the cube back to 240. It's easier to shrink the cube and keep the lands section more or less the same. 240 leaves the prospect of drafting with 8 players if needs must (30 card pools are tight, but doable when building 30 card decks), but much more functional for my primary play experience.

Perhaps most importantly, cutting back presents the perfect time for a frank inventory of the cube in terms of what's archetype defining, what is load-bearing, and what is fringe / unexciting. Expect more changes soon as I tinker with the exact roster of each section.

Not perhaps the most exciting set for the 1 Drop Cube, but MOM delivers a few choice options.

Novice Knight > Tarkir Duneshaper
These two cards offer a very similar value proposition. Both require further investment to turn a meh creature into an oversized one for the format. Knight helped support an equipment theme in white, but I'm willing to try the more streamlined trampler.

Cobbled Lancer > Captive Weird
Lancer just wasn't seeing play. I anticipated it being dropped into the graveyard with Stitcher's Supplier, riding along with Gravecrawler and otherwise acting like a glue card. Weird doesn't do any of that, but it does set up a nice roadblock early and draw an extra card that should be eminently usable in the midgame.

Combat Courier > Omen Hawker
See the Lancer discourse but substitute "artifact" for "zombie." Omen Hawker is unlikely to be great in a cube where actual factual Sol Ring is on the tail end of powerful cards in the cube, but it should go late and a deck that wants this effect really wants it.

Sticky Fingers > Beamtown Beatstick
Perhaps one of the most over-hyped cards I've seen in a while, Sticky Fingers is fine, but not amazing. Beatstick obviously is more expensive to set up, but the decks that want it probably won't mind an activation cost. Sure, you don't get a card back when your creature dies, but you still get to keep the stick?

All will be one, indeed!

Despite featuring a good number of 1 drops, ONE doesn't have a ton for us. Like many cubers, I don't find Toxic / Corrupt to be a good fit for the environment and many of the spells that use oil counters seem to be tuned for an environment extremely dense with proliferate. Despite that, there are almost enough Toxic cards here to spawn a whole poison archetype, particularly if your fork of the cube is closer to 240. Skrelv, Defector Mite in particular catches my eye as a repeatable way to get the ball rolling.

Minor Misstep
At first I hesitated to include a card that literally identifies itself as a powered down version of Mental Misstep. Still, the cube is hungry for variety of interaction and this can hit Ancestral Vision and other suspend spells. I think that's enough to make the cut.

Whisper of the Dross
Obviously -1/-1 is below rate, but I think proliferate is enough of a bonus here to be worth the downgrade. A huge portion of the cube relies on counters of some kind, and I could easily see this turning into an instant speed Basri's Solidarity on certain boards.

Cacophony Scamp
Close friends with Fireblade Charger, Scamp is a great piece in hammertime combo decks. Outside of those decks, its probably only so-so, but there is plenty of good equipment around. I doubt you'll often cash it in for the proliferate outside of scoring lethal or removing something, but that trigger is nice to have.

Gleeful Demolition
This card is mostly Kuldotha Rebirth which isn't currently in the cube. Goblin tribal isn't overtly supported and we don't have the Ichor Wellsprings and other eggs that pauper uses to support it. Still, making this modal as a way to remove your opponents artifacts is a little extra spice.

Kuldotha Rebirth and Dynacharge
Writing the above entry, I've persuaded myself into trying to support more of a go-wide aggro deck in Red. We've had all these individual haste-y creatures, but traditionally its been hard to actually go wider than your opponent when both players are deploying fistfuls of 1 drop creatures. Perhaps these tools help aggro go wide enough, fast enough to get a quick kill late game?

Standard Procedure
This slipped by me during UNF preview season. I think it's a bend rather than a break of the cube's core inclusion criteria, but it's not dissimilar to casting a 1 mana spell that has a 1-3 mana ability stapled to it. The standard limitation means that this is unlikely to break games, unlike Killer Cosplay.

Silver Raven
Always worse than Faerie Seer, I switched to Raven to support The Blackstaff of Waterdeep. Now there are plenty of artifact creatures about plus Alloy Animist pulls this deck towards non-creatures in general.

Defile
This card has dipped in and out more times than I remember. In my experience, it's usually slightly bigger than Ulcerate but sometimes you need to cast that turn 1. I'm sure it will return in future balancing updates.

Goblin Javelineer
I didn't have high hopes for this card, but it's held it's own. The ability to ping thru many of the cubes chump blockers means that it more or less reads "unblockable until your opponent cares." It may see a return, but now I'm cutting it to make room for the experimental Kuldotha Red deck.

Vandalblast
This is an obviously great effect, but expensive and frequently worse than Shattering Spree. Red still has plenty of artifact hate and I doubt this one will be missed, even if it is sad to see a card from the very beginning go.

Slumbering Dragon
While this card reads very cool, the removal in this cube has proven too good for this card to have an impact. Absorbing a premium removal spell is something, but we can hope for more from a slot.

Raze the Effigy
This card has outperformed expectation. There aren't that many tricks in the cube - they tend to be outshone by more lasting threats and they go against the "threats on board" design philosophy I've been following. Still, +2/+2 occasionally tilts a combat just so and its been neat to see this card's interactions with Spikeshot Elder and other cards that care about power. This is likely to return.

Meekstone
This card was really a stopgap, a hedge against some of the huge green creatures that had made their way into the cube. Over the last few updates, I've cut the most egregious of those, leaving Crashing Footfalls as one of the few truly wild sources of raw stats. What I really want is a reduced power version of this. Lantern of Lost Souls is to Relic of Progenitus as my ideal hate card would be to Meekstone.

Just back from the weekend's prereleases and I am pleasantly surprised by how fun BRO seems to have turned out. A lot of the big robots are lost on us, but there are a few substitutions to be found here.

Condemn > Lay Down Arms
Condemn was probably the worst of white's removal suite, so I don't mind letting it go. I am a little concerned about Lay Down Arms being so close to, yet so significantly worse than Path to Exile but I am more or less committed to a philosophy of having some power outliers in the cube at this point.

Akrasan Squire > Recruitment Officer
Akrasan Squire's ability to hang back and pump other creatures was notable, but not unique in the cube. We still have Infantry Veteran for most cases and Noble Hierarch and Ignoble Hierarch to specifically support Nimble Mongoose shenanigans in Green. Recruitment Officer meanwhile provides 2 power, relevant types, and a slow draw for white decks that sometimes want for things to do with their mana in the late game. Interesting, but likely replacable in the long term.

Merchant's Dockhand > Combat Courier
I'm sad to see Dockhand go; it was one of my first additions to the cube. Still, it rarely sees maindeck play these days as blue tends to either be more about tempo or have more efficient ways to draw cards. I'm not wildly optimistic about courier, but it does provide Divination on a chump blocker and is useful to mill.

Death's Shadow > Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist
Despite it's constructed pedigree, Death's Shadow rarely impresses in a format without fetches, shocks, and other lifeloss enablers. Ashnod, meanwhile, provides another sac outlet to the burgeoning aristocrats deck and lets black contribute to the artifacts subtheme that permeates the cube.

Concealing Curtains > Dreams of Steel and Oil
Concealing Curtains was a bit of a flop. Sure the 4 toughness meant it blocked well, but almost every deck that wants that effect would rather have Disowned Ancestor. Even the transform ability often accidentally drew your opponents into gas. Dreams will be the cubes first hand disruption card, a major black theme at 1 mana that as of yet has not been represented in the cube. Critically, this card exiles and provides some graveyard hate, but not an oppressive amount. The 1.5 for 1 quality feels like it's enough to push this over the line.

Permeating Mass > Alloy Animist
Permeating Mass is another card that is near and dear to my heart for just creating weird board situations. Sadly those board situations also trend towards board stalls, sometimes with no resolution. Alloy Animist really impressed me in the pre-release and from early streamer content as a way to regularly turn dinky equipment into big, disposable beaters. It still requires a little bit of work from the green deck, but that seems like a nice change from the Hexdrinkers of the world.

Tail Swipe > Bushwhack
Tail Swipe didn't really have a chance to prove itself in play testing, but I prefer the modality of searching up a land to the instant speed / +1/+1 upside.

Hexdrinker > Teething Wurmlet
As alluded to above, I've come down on Hexdrinker with time. The card is surely powerful, but it's easy to slow roll it until you can more or less make it invulnerable to interaction in two turns. This kind of "removal check" goes against what I see as the spirit of the format: powerful threats need to be developed on the battlefield to promote a healthy back and forth or require substantial deckbuilding restrictions. I'm not wild about Wurmlet as an alternative, but it does exemplify the gradual growth and the deck building requirements that I prefer.

Caustic Caterpillar > Haywire Mite
Less of a like-for-like change than you'd expect. As more artifact creatures enter the cube, the unrestricted targeting of caterpillar may yet be missed enough for it to make a triumphant return. For now, I prefer the slight upsides provided by artifact typing and the tiny amount of lifegain on Mite.

A couple tweaks here before digging into BRO. Un-sets often present novel problems for card inclusion with their wacky rules that don't play well outside of a dedicated un-draft and their parasitic A+B mechanics like contraptions or attractions that come with a big complexity overhead for not much payoff. Your mileage may vary, but I've stuck to relatively conservative picks here.

Cloakwood Swarmkeeper > Tchotchke Elemental
Not quite a like-for-like substitution, but Tchothcke triggers off of substantially more cards in the cube. The card doesn't specify what happens if you can't fit another item, so you could abstract these as knicknack counters and just increment the amount using a die.

Signal Pest > Strength-Testing Hammer
In testing, Signal Pest always managed to be blocked by a flyer. I also have found that artifact removal is becoming more and more prevalent maindeck. Strength-Testing Hammer obviously gets blown out by the latter as well, but it seems like a fun card to try. I think you are reasonably happy with any roll 2 or higher and occasionally getting payed out with a card seems like a nice upside. It also plays nicely in hammertime combo decks or amusingly with Spikeshot Elder. I doubt this card will be around for a longtime though with the generally high quality of equipment available.

Experimental Synthesizer > Nurgle's Rot
Synthesizer generally was too expensive for too little value. Not every card can be Ancestral Recall but the prevalence of such good card draw lowers the stock of this slow [[Mulldrifter]. Nurgle's Rot is another durdly do-nothing enchantment in a cube full of such things. A 1/3 token blocks quite well so if you can get one going you're probably happy with the investment. If you pair this with repeated removal like Guul Draz Assassin then you can really get some value.

Thanks to the digital only set, it feels like its been a long time since I've made changes to the cube. DMU brings some nice additions. I am particularly interested in the choices offered by the multicolor kicker spells. They all help flesh out Roost of Drakes plus I am interested to see whether any are playable unkickable.

I'm experimenting with a different update format this set. I'll still review each add and cut individually, just not one-for-one. It feels like a better practice for avoiding a like-for-like cutting mentality.

Curious Obsession
Initially I was going to add Combat Research, but only 4 creatures can actually benefit from that cards +1/+1 buff. This card may only see play in blue aggro decks and still risks devastating two for ones, but it can also help those decks close out a game.

Pixie Illusionist
I never thought we'd get another Faerie Squadron, but here we are. I wish that the land ability targeted your opponent's lands, but the fixing may be relevant sometimes. This card may yet be cut for being so closely redundant with another effect, but it feels like it goes in a slightly different deck.

Shore Up
This card has been getting constructed attention. Quietly it's a narrow counterspell that also sometimes lets you win a combat or untap a critical combo piece.

Cult Conscript
I'm actually surprised by how few of the growing pool of recursive 2/1 black aggro creatures the cube runs at the moment. This one's trigger is a little more difficult, but should fit nicely into a deck with Cryptbreaker and Gravecrawler among other more aristocrats-minded strategies.

Evolved Sleeper
Another pseudo-leveler and this one with each level being quite affordable. This category of card is a key part of this cube's emphasis on on-board interaction and threats. I'm excited to see how Sleeper fits into the mix.

Urborg Repossession
The more I think about this card, the more excited I am by it. The cube has previously lacked access to a good Regrowth effect. This one does so as a sometimes 2-for-1 and benefits from synergy cards that mill or otherwise set it up. The only downside is that I doubt its playable without being kicked.

Phoenix Chick
The most critical word on this card is "flying." Cheap red flyers give Red decks access to a type of evasive aggro that hasn't really been an option previously in the card pool. Coming back from the yard is a nice bonus, though it's condition may be hard to meet.

Strength of the Coalition
I'm primarily excited about the kicked mode here, though the +2/+2 will decide its fair share of combats.

Tail Swipe
Fight spells are typically quite poor in the 1 Drop Cube. They suffer from their usual downside of requiring a creature to function, plus creatures tend to be smaller and often have higher toughness than power. The +1/+1 is a nice bump as is the option of instant speed, but this likely won't survive testing.

Walking Bulwark
Including this card, only 5 creatures have defender in the cube scattered across several colors. A true "walls" deck isn't really available. That said, this attacks as 3/3 and blocks a large chunk of the cube. If it ever hastens another creature, all the better. It's a fun signpost card that someone will have a great time trying to make work. I'll likely browse scryfall to see if I can't add some additional support.

Wash Away
I had high hopes for this card, but paying 3 mana to counter a 1 mana spell most of the time just proved to dear.

Skywatcher Adept
A stalwart from Glenn Jones' days, I've always found this to be one of the last filler cards I cut from my blue decks. The increase in spells capable of killing it when fully leveled and the influx of cheaper flying men with kicker more or less edged it out.

Thousand-Faced Shadow
While this card technically fits in the blue flyers aggro deck, it usually just was cast as a Flying Man. The 4 mana ninjutsu ability felt costly and the format lacks the tools to repeatedly trigger it.

Ghastly Demise
I'm continuing to tune the exact amount of removal available to black. This piece is the least functional and often doesn't actually make it into decks.

Quag Vampires
While I want to keep as much kicker in the cube as possible, Quag Vampires' kicker is just a little too expensive: 3 mana for a 2/2, 5 mana for a 3/3 etc. If only this had some kind of evasion.

Bloodchief Ascension
This card is strong, but strangely rarely sees play at my table. It's also difficult to interact with in a way that feels less fun than it is powerful. I'll prune it for now to use its slot for testing and then likely add it back in a future update.

Cabaretti Initiate
Double strike is a novel effect at 1 mana, but this cost is just too high.

Abundant Harvest
Yes, this card is one of the best green cantrips, but it has such a slim effect on the game and doesn't have the wow factor of something like Glimpse of Nature. If a UG spells deck ever emerges, I'll reconsider it.

Vastwood Fortification
While the MDFC lands are easy to fit in the deck, this spell is so minor that it rarely is stronger than playing a Forest. With WotC printing more interesting combat trips, I'd prefer to use the slot for those.

Ominous Parcel
At first glance this seems like it can fill the role of both a Traveler's Amulet and a Spiked Pit Trap and flexibility is worth mana. The cost just ended up being too steep and the effect too slight to be valuable for most decks.