Blue
Black
Green
From the first spoiler, it looks like this Superdrop might have some really relevant art for this cube.
Blue
This is largely a power-level shift. Removal in this cube is pretty bad, so Ward 4 is rough. The Kappa can also get huge really quickly and is often unblockable, so I think cutting it is a solid call.
Black
Oh cool, I finally get a sweeper and all it costs me is cutting a crappy ninja. I can live with that. It's probably for the best that she doesn't batch with any relevant tribes too for power-level reasons.
Colorless
Paradise Mantle fits into the modified deck pretty well and helps with ramp (kind of), which I think is helpful. Also a free artifact for artifact decks. I'd rather run that than another copy of Iron Apprentice anyday.
I honestly didn't think I was going to be updating this cube outside of the occasional Secret Lair for years, but little did I know that Jumpstart 2022 was going to be featuring anime art styles for some cards. Honestly, I'm totally okay with that. This cube can use a few rough edges sanded off and my card pool is really small overall, so I'll take whatever I can get at this point.
White
Replacing a custom with an actual Magic card for this one. Sun-Blessed Samurai is probably the custom card I'm least excited about, so seeing it go isn't a huge loss. Peacewalker Colossus seems like exactly the boost that vehicle decks need, so that's a welcome addition.
- Sun-Blessed Samurai > Peacewalker Colossus
Blue
Two changes here so far. I don't love cutting down on a vehicle, but Imposter Mech is just kinda bad. Mirror Image is a much more generic, but overall better clone effect, so this makes sense to swap to me. Futurist Operative is a cool card, but Whirler Rogue is just an all-around all-star for this cube. Rogues are batched with ninjas throughout NEO, so it triggers and is buffed by anything that cares about ninjas, the artifacts are super relevant and it can help push in damage or get a Ninjutsu trigger when needed. Plus the new art looks like Lofi Girl. No-brainer swap.
Red
I totally missed how broken Fable is when I put together this cube. Including this card here is a massive mistake and it needs to go.
Green
Cutting another custom card. This one was a take on an Alchemy card that really didn't synergize with much in the cube to begin with. That was just kind of a "I need a 3 CMC creature for green" kinda thing and Brontodon fills that slot way better.
- Jukai Liberator > Thrashing Brontodon
Metal Gear is one of my all-time favorite game franchises and I absolutely love Yoji Shinkawa's character design and artwork. I've been disappointed since Neon Dynasty came out that I couldn't get his promo art for Satoru Umezawa into this cube, but thankfully his upcoming Secret Lair release gives me another opportunity to get his artwork into this cube.
Colorless
I think both of these are just straight-up upgrades. The artwork is obviously the big driving motivation for these changes, but both cards are better than what they're replacing. Metamorph is kind of cool as I couldn't really get Jin-Gitaxis into this cube due to power level concerns, so I'm glad this affords me an ability to get some Phyrexian representation into this cube given the story of the set.
As I was sitting down to finally build this cube out in paper, I was thinking about last minute ways I could try to tweak/improve the Samurai deck and also got to thinking about other sets that I could potentially draw from for this cube. I've also been playing a whole lot of Street Fighter V lately as I'm super hype for VI to come out, so I thought I'd check out the Secret Lair: Street Fighter cards. Turns out that both Ken and Ryu actually fit pretty well into this cube. Yell at me for being part of the problem with modern Magic, but I don't care. This is perfect for this cube and my friends and I growing up would jam games of Alpha 3 and Third Strike long into the night, so that franchise holds a special place in my heart.
White
Ryu is a warrior which triggers the same things that a samurai would, so immediately this is a more relevant creature type that Kitsune being a random off-color ninja in white. His training is kind of awkward given that this deck is largely built towards attacking with only one creature, but if nothing else it provides some kind of value when this deck isn't able to do that. The discard can also possibly feed into some kind of shenanigans with the sisters Yamazaki, as well.
Red
- Peerless Samurai > Ken, Burning Brawler
- Lava Spike > Lightning Bolt (the Hadoken version)
Similar to Ryu, Ken is a warrior so I have no qualms with swapping a samurai out for Ken here. On whole, I think Ken is a lot stronger than Ryu is in this cube (which makes me happy as I'm a Ken main in SF) and I think he'll wind up being a pretty strong card here. I think Lightning Bolt might be a touch too strong in this cube, but I'll give it a go because I love the flavor of being able to Shoryuken into a Hadoken with Ken. If Bolt is a problem, I can easily swap back to Lava Spike.