I opened my envelope of cards and saw that I somehow left hellrider off my list. I did however buy this fun lil playtest card that we can try instead. Ankh synergy?

Goblin of St Rock? Geist of St Rabblemaster? there's a nickname here I'm sure of it

I went to sleeve wave and realized its just uncastable

Giving a few tools to punish splash heavy decks

This update focuses on Green and Black. Can you smell what the rock is cooking? My goals are to:

This cube was first built before Kaladesh - the first time green ever received artifact support. It's been a long time since Kaladesh, and now the color finally has enough support where it can actually be INTERESTING support thats up to my power standards. Exited to see how this effects decklists

Black Devotion is unfortunately, dead. Its possible it could survive in this new, slower environment, but its maybe a bit too linear. I will miss the reminder of that era of magic, but it lives on in enough other areas.

Things to worry about:

I buy a lot of random bulk singletons. This card lines up with my goal to move away from sligh, works well with equipment and decks that like impulse draw. play next to bombardment? eyes emoji

Similar to my last sidegrade post, I'm hoping to push some themes with this update, remove some chaff, and put my finger on the scale of some common board states I observe.

Sidegrades:
Nothing here is strictly better, but they should work to shift the decks people are building.

Board States:
I've noted this before - but I think it has become too easy for all colors to flood the board. I have seen too many aggressive decks stall out when an opponent drops 2-3 cards that flood the board with tokens. Additionally, base green decks might have it too easy when it comes to mana with the density of ramp spells I was running. With the shock fetch manabase, it shouldn't be so hard for aggro decks to get the reach they need. On the flip side, control decks need more resources to power their wins.

I'm deep in the factory that is my cube and I'm slightly spinning a handful of gauges - to the causal observer this seems nonsensical - but to my expert eyes they allow the fine tuning of the delicate power balance.

Bonesplitter is so much easier than Eater of Virtue. why bother

The other two changes promote fiddly artifact things over providing fixing redundancy to greedy mana bases.

Very excited that Mono Decent will be featured in the Baltimore Saltbox cube tournament in March. I'm going to make a few tweaks in preparation to that over the next couple weeks, removing some problematic cards and adding some cards I've been wanting to try.

Wild Nacatl is a classic, but pigeonholes aggro decks into Naya. Rin and Seri serves a similar role, but punches faster as a topdeck, and is usable in more decks. Also has some incidental synergies like buffing heliod.

Maze of Ith is obnoxious. I pulled it from a pack and it survived for a while because I've never been sitting on the other side. good riddance!

Wandertale Mentor was awesome in prerelease, should be an interesting sidegrade from signet.

Stormwing entity is blah, demilich is ???

Heaped Harvest really interests me. Buffs green delirium, and plays into different sac themes.

Wingmate Roc is fun, but I think my top end decks are spamming the floor too much for aggro decks to close out. Hornet Queen is also on the verge of being cut. Gearhulk adds more juice to the stax theme and is a similar power range.

Have about another dozen changes in mind, stay tuned.

I've made some changes lately that have been really great. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the cube has been playing out lately. However, there's a few balance things I'd like to adjust, and I think I can solve that by pivoting some threats and cutting a few cards that just aren't getting there. Here's my rambling thoughts in no particular order:

I don't think trash for treasure is needed - it was good redundancy, but I think there's plenty of ways to get combos off the ground.

I think experimental frenzy will be an interesting build around. Could be an awesome top end for a few different decks.

I was down 2 cards when setting up for my last draft, which was pretty unfortunate. Thanks to Alex for purchasing a Bloomburrow collectors pack with the seeded Loreseeker. In his honor, Arthur, Marigold Knight will get a slot for a while. I've been looking for a good Jeskai bomb for a while, and this one seems really sick! Added the missing cards to the maybe board until I acquire new copies.

Comet is strong, and people don't like it. Fair enough! Going back to the old days of Nahiri, the Harbinger for hand sculpting + repeatable removal source. With the recent increase in recursive threats, this should be even better than it was in the past.

It turns out conspiracy cards are just broken in half. I am going to blame the slowly rising power level, and the blind spots of my prior play groups for this decision taking so long. From now on, any conspiracy cards will be kept in the Lore Seeker Power Pack.

Finally, added a few slight buffs to red aggro decks. Hired Claw won me a prerelease and Legion Loyalist is really just a 1/1, which sucks.

It's time for the goblin experiment to end. The deck just frankly doesn't get there as far as I can tell. I want aggro to be a little stronger, and a less parasitic red theme.

(although as an aside that might be a sign to reformat my black section down the line, since MBDevotion is just as parasitic).

few other irrelevant tweaks

2 just straight side-grades, boring!

Trigger happy sounds so fun!

Bitter reunion is a lame ass role filler card (delirium, discard, draw). Tibalt might make some wild shit go down!

I don't have enough modular for zabaz to be relevant. But the snick snack might make some things go woaaah!!

Jitte was another recent upgrade that scares me. WGBG might be too weak but could also be fun! Idk yet.

Might want to slow down on changes for now. I've done lots of rearranging without testing in last year...

Just bought a bunch of weird cards, gonna start thinking about how to slot them in while I'm on this plane ride. I have more to try but starting small!

JTMS I just added and feel weird about, like the power down of BOB instead!

Charm 🥰😍

Mirrored lotus might be too strong but IDGAF

Sprite dragon bores me, I think it would be busted with HTKAIMB, so making the swap.

Codebreaker>Piledriver isn't as fun as the rest of these swaps but still worth noting.

Largepox might be too hard to cast tbh but no one plays witch

Rancor rocks but I'd like to switch it up a bit!

Stormbreath is outdated + was never actually that good.

Stalker + festering is goblin support, strict upgrades in this environment.

Too many 3 drops in white + I like tokens.

Thinking about it, and I didn't love the way it was looking. The power delta was getting pretty big, and maybe too many multicolored cards. If I pop up to 450 I want to cut twin completely but need to do it purposefully