Changes:
Deadwood Guardian removed
Detritus Scavenger added
3/3
At the beginning of each end step, you gain 3 life if you discarded a land card this turn, you create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token if you discarded a creature card this turn, and you draw a card if you discarded a noncreature, nonland card this turn.
, Discard two cards: Return Detritus Scavenger from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.

It was still clear even after changes that Deadwood Guardian was the strongest thing a midrange deck could be doing and wasn't really encouraging the jund themes as much as just playing some ramp/fixing and trading defensively until you could land this and get it all back. Rather than continue to work the numbers, I wanted to try a new idea that tied more closely to the madness theme in jund and wasn't just a multicolor good card.

Inner Journey
->
Meant as a cheap madness enabler, the power of this card was very skewed to the alt cost. Seeing blue decks having some trouble keeping up on card advantage compared to green, this was a buff meant to make it not a terrible draw option in a simple control shell as well.

Backwash Removed
Intellectual Victory Added
Instant
Kicker
Counter target spell unless its controller pays X, where X is the number of cards in your hand. If Intellectual Victory was kicked, instead draw three cards, then counter that spell unless its controller pays X, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library.

I wanted to rework the counterspell suite in the cube to be more versatile. This adds an extra miracle enabler to the cube, and will be useful in more than just the most tempo-heavy decks.

Search for the Sun Tree Removed
Karmic Strength Added
Enchantment
Whenever you cast an enchantment, instant, or sorcery spell, choose one that hasn’t been chosen this turn—
• Karmic Strength deals 1 damage to any target.
• Discard a card, then draw a card.
• Create a Treasure token.
• Create a 1/1 red Wizard creature token with prowess.

Search for the Sun Tree was a fun card, but a bit too expensive to compete with the powerhouses of other archetypes. I wanted to power up the spellslinger decks by adding a more affordable enabler, and also get a bit more prowess represented in the cube.

Up // Up Removed
Myraid Possibilities Added
Instant - Modal Cost
- Draw a card
- Scry 2, then draw two cards.
- Scry 3, then draw three cards.

Up // Up was a silly pun and a way for blue aggro decks to get a little card advantage and evasion in. But the rate wasn't really competitive and it was a risky play. New card expands on the Modal Cost idea I tried out on Unravel, with a safer and more powerful card draw spell.

Crushed Hopes Removed
Tandem Defiance Added
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2. If that spell is countered this way, you may put a +1/+1 counter on a tapped creature you control.
Conspire

Although good wen it hit, a 2-mana force spike is really inconsistent. Moving up to a quench and adding in some bonuses to encourage playing cheap creatures.

Crumbling Reality Removed
Lazotep Infusion Added
Enchantment
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, amass 1
Whenever a Zombie token you control with power 6 or greater attacks, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback 0 until end of turn.

Crumbling reality was incredibly slow to get online naturally and basically never worth it. To help out the spellslinger decks, it's replaced with this play on Dreadhorde Invasion.

Antigravity Trap Removed
Transmogrifying Trap Added
Instant - Trap
If a nontoken creature an opponent controls entered the battlefield this turn and it wasn’t cast, you may pay rather than this spell’s mana cost.
Exile target creature. Its controller creates a 3/2 colorless Eldrazi creature token.
Draw a card.

A narrow bounce spell didn't do enough to allow the blue tempo decks to fight some of the big board plays that other decks could make. Turning it from a bounce to a pongify will help them actually deal with the big blockers that can get in their way.

Shrouding Flames Removed
Dancing Wisps Added
Instant
Dancing Wisps deals 1 damage to each opponent.
Draw a card.
Whenever you cast a spell on an opponent’s turn, you may pay . When you do, return Dancing Wisps from your graveyard to your hand.

Shrouding Flames takes too long to accumulate enough damage to be worth a pick, and it's not great at dealing with creatures because sac effects can fizzle the re-suspend. New card is a cantrip and a payoff for flash decks, a much better glue card.

(continued...)

Based on playtest patterns, I wanted to make the following broad changes, as well as some adjustments to individual cards that were over/underperforming.

Goal 1: Make ramp/5-color strategies less dominating. I don't want to eliminate 5-color decks entirely, but in the last version of the cube, they were very easy to get ahead of aggro and stabilize with big, board+card advantage plays.

For this goal, I trimmed 1 card out of each multicolor section, so that decks could get access to more options while drafting without having to stretch into more colors, plus tuned down a few of the better of the ramp cards and top-end that green goodstuff soup decks played.

Goal 2: Lighten up on the non-games caused by land destruction and combo/cheaty plays.

I don't think the LD was too strong, but feedback seems to be that people don't like getting their lands destroyed, and I'm not the only one who should be having fun, so I'll concede this. As for the cheaty plays, those changes mostly involve adding an extra mana here and there to give some time to counter play without removing them entirely.

Goal 3: Aggro decks were getting stonewalled too quickly. I'm not a fan of aggressive strategies, but variety is a good thing, and a lot of these decks struggled to make an impact.

The idea here was to bump up the marginal benefits/adaptability of aggro cards without breaking their nut draw.

Goal 4: Make madness more consistent, Constellation less consistent.

Both decks had really strong nut draws, but constellation was easier to make work on the average case, while madness struggled to make its mid hands work.

Changes:
Section 1: Multicolor trimming
Atzocan Flagbearer
Mana cost ->
Make cheap creature easier to cast, make it another option for a broader range of aggressive decks.

Desperate Outcast
Level Up ->
Change the off-color activation to on-color so more aggro decks can make use of it. Lifelink synergies mean it will still be at its best in BW.

Eternal Titan
Mana cost / -> /
Life gain effects from both halves removed

Isochron Crown
Mana cost ->
The effect here was restrictive enough. Now that any blue deck can play it, it may have more chances to find the right home.

Shadow Alley Stalker
Mana cost ->
B has a lot of discard, but not a lot of madness payoff of its own. With this, BG or UB could gt some synergies with its discard effects.

Puppeteer Spider Removed
Zombeast Within Added
I'm pretty sad about this one, since I love the flavor of the design, which came to me fully formed in a dream, but mechanically it didn't fit in well with the decks that would play a Golgari 6-drop.

Camaraderie in War Removed
Phoenix Feathers Added
This hybrid card was in an odd place. Not too weak, but never really doing enough, and the design couldn't survive going down to 1 color, so we have replaced it with a new enchantment that the tokens decks will find a little easier to use.

Fizzle Removed
Catastrophic Collapse Added
A 2-mana, color intense, soft counter was not pulling its weight. The spell-heavy tempo decks needed something more impactful and easy to cast. Adding an extra madness card that can also play fair helps goal 4.

Gallus Druid
Mana cost ->
In addition to making it easier for madness decks to cast, it gives mono-G some more creatures that bend towards aggro and away from ramp, for variety.

Rise from the Deep Removed
Meddlesome Nymph Added
This card was a complete trap and never worked, but I don't want to buff a cheaty card when the cube has enough of that. Instead, replace it with a creature that promotes an aggressive angle to the constellation theme.

Section 2: Card Swaps

Everglass Removed
Aven Snatcher Added
Everglass simply could never find a deck that could make it work. One Ring at home is going bye-bye. Aven Snatcher coming in as a disruptive, evasive creature + card filtering and prowess trigger for tempo decks.

Sage Tutor Removed
Forgetful Haze Added
U decks tended to want card-disadvantage tutors far less than expected. Tempo decks didn't have the silver bullets for it, and ramp/flash decks just wanted card draw instead. I feel this new card will be a good adaptable interactive piece, and the soft lock requires 1UUUU every turn, which is an acceptable cost.

Rust Over Removed
Markov's Feast Added
A sideboard card to remove artifacts wasn't impactful enough. This cube needed maindeckable answers, and the fail case of just getting a clue was not enough for this card to make the cut.

Section 3: Card Nerfs

Lord of the Thrulls
5/6 -> 4/6
The upkeep cost was no deterrent for a giant flampler with built-in chump blockers to absolutely crush a race. Shaving a power will reduce the time to kill and give time for that sunk mana to add up.

Lord of the Necropolis
Gain 1 for each card that goes to graveyard -> lifelink
By gaining 4+ life immediately, the life payment of the ETB trigger was basically nullified. Switching to simple lifelink means there is a period of vulnerability before you can attack and gain the life back.

Bud // Bloom
Bloom: gain 3 life -> gain 2 life
The fused mode gave too much of a life buffer for ramp vs aggro.

Freyalise's Disciple
Mana cost ->
1/1 -> 2/2
In combo with Lairs, this Sol Ring+ was a devastating turn 1 play. Delaying by 1 means fewer games will come down to if you could shock the elf.

Jotunn Outcast
Mana cost ->
ETB or countered: draw 2 -> cast: draw 2
The card advantage + big body helped the big green decks or just anything that could splash it stabilize the board while keeping cards flowing. I don't want to completely gut the card, but tone back the splashability and the synergy with blink/reanimate effects that turned it from a value card into a real monster.

Soul of the Old Wood
Mana cost ->
Hexproof from blue and black -> ward
Cutting out 40% of the removal options and being not too hard to cast, this thing ended the game fast and was probably the best top-end in the cube

Vernal Flourishing
Trigger each main phase -> Trigger precombat main phase
This was the central piece of the explosive constellation deck, and getting an extra trigger for free was not necessary. It can still be a useful ramp piece like this.

Wildborn Napaea
Mana cost ->
Memorialize cost ->
Constellation trigger now requires you to pay to get the beast.
The costs are shifted so the first beast is the same investment, but you have to pay for subsequent ones. This stops the big combo turns that can put out boards of 5+ beasts as early as turn 3.

Stilvalt, the Floating Peak
Reveal card from your hand when you activate -> reveal card when you play and keep its colors noted.
There was a sense that this card was just a free rainbow land, since most of the time you were tapping it to cast a card from your hand anyway.

Ashborn Horror
7/7 -> 6/6
Reduce the time to kill from 3 to 4 turns. It was already drawing 2 spells, so resolving this was backbreaking, and will only be marginally less so now.

Emrakul's Aristocrat
7/1 -> 6/2
As above, make this one less lethal. I'm not convinced it's enough, and my inner Mel is sad that my original idea of two Falkenrath Aristocrats stapled together + emerge couldn't be, now on its third nerf in the life of this cube.

Deadwood Guardian
BRG, discard 2: return from yard -> can cast from yard by discarding 2 in addition.
The face value of this creature was powerful enough to be one of the biggest pulls toward 5c soup. Limiting the backend to full cost and sorcery so its not pure gravy. Unfortunately, it no longer mirrors the SOI self-reanimators, and isn't much good as a madness outlet. I will consider in the future making a full swap for this one, but the card is still tons of fun to play with, so I'm hesitant.

Chronomeddling
Mana cost ->
One or both -> choose one, entwine
Card was just a little too cost efficient before.

Riptide Titan
Mana cost ->
ETB trigger now says nonland
Making it less splashable and also removing the semi land-destruction effect.

Reimbue
Mana cost ->
In the late game the cost doesn't matter that much. This just delays the fast draws by a turn to hopefully limit the non-games.

Kathryn, the Indomitable
Ability now can only be activated as a sorcery.
This will effectively half the number of tokens she creates. Tokens decks weren't necessarily too strong, but the strong cards were very strong and this was one of them.

Lifesteel Master
Ability cost ->
It won't make the cheated creature come in any faster, but it will limit what other things you can cast on the same turn, limiting the total tempo this card gives.

Comb the Archives
Mana cost ->
Surge cost ->
The play of cantrip/removal into redraw your 3 best spells on turn 5 often made this the most important card in every game. I wanted to even out the power of the surge vs non-surge mode.

Mothrider Cavalry
3/4 -> 3/3
This army in a can was one too many stats for its cost.

Section 4: Card Buffs

Etched Remnant
Ability cost ->
You already paid for the creature, so paying to turn that creature back into cards doesn't have to be so expensive.

Darkwood Spy
Mana cost ->
Memorialize cost ->
Phyrexian Arena isn't what it used to be. There was too much tempo loss to casting either side of this card. Making the front easier on the color pips and the back cheaper will give this broader appeal in all varieties of B decks.

Mistfeeder
Dies to exile + can cast from yard -> Embalm
Being only good to discard and not to sac meant this card was limited to only half of the relevant B decks. Allowing it to die once and then come back will make it a useful resilient B aggro threat in many decks.

...Continued