3 artifact changes in addition to the 5 other colorless cards leaving the cube (see previous updates). In general I continue to be on the search for colorless cards that actually make maindecks, and these three at least have applications in specific strategies (food, draw/discard, gravebreak).

For lands, I'm bringing in the TDM tri-lands as they're now available in my pool. Since I don't have a full cycle, and these support enemy colors better than allied colors, I'm bringing in a 2nd copy of allied dual-type lands from DMU. I'm adding these as opposed to deserts or artifact lands, as I'm happy with the density of those, and would appreciate more dual-typed lands to enhance the LTR landcyclers, which have fallen off a bit in recent seasons.

Gold section changes for me are very much a case of killing your darlings. I have large gold sections in part because I love gold cards, and in most cases, I'm sad about the cards leaving / can see some coming back in the future.

One note on classification...I intentionally have 2 slots in my gold sections for hybrid / split cards, so that's where the stormbroods are going, and why they're replacing the cards they're replacing. The largest change of note here is the attempt at pushing the "gravebreak" synergies with Kishla Skimmer, Insidious Roots, and other support. Other curators have reported this being a particularly sweet synergy if nothing else, so I'm happy to spend a season or 2 trying it out.

For green, one of the changes is the attempt to support "grave-break" in UG and GB (see multi-color changes) with Champion, Molt Tender, and Cache Grab, we'll see how that synergy plays out.

Dragonclaw Strike I'm classifying as a green card for now, though I might have to re-classify it as a gold card (or more likely remove it from the cube) if it pans out to be a mostly RG card. Charge just seems like a better Storm the Seedcore to me.

Cease // Desist is a bit speculative, but I like how the other hybrid split cards have played, and Cease plays well in the gravebreak decks, while also being card draw for black in the UB draw 2 space. I'm classifying it as a green card for now, similar to how I've treated the other hybrid split cards.

Trumpeting Herd should have probably been in the cube a long time ago, and Traveling Botanist has been the standout green card from TDM.

For Red, Ahn-Crop Crasher rotates out, and while I strongly dislike CC cards, I'm interested in testing Fear of Being hunted, at least momentarily.

The largest change to red comes in the form of the new go-wide package, with Gleeful Demolition, Shocking Sharpshooter, Molten Gatekeeper, and Shock Brigade contributing. I'm not convinced on these changes, but have heard other curators report good things, so we'll see.

Ghostfire Slice is probably a card that should've been in long ago, and Fuel the Flames barely saw any play, though I can see it returning if go-wide is a big riser this season.

One change for black this season is to remove 2 of its "doom blades" (Cast Down and Power Word Kill) for more synergy focused cards removal spells. Black has been the best color in the cube since its inception, mostly because it has the largest density of cards that "just work" without needing synergy. Hopefully this will push things in a better direction, but I can imagine those doom blades coming back in future seasons.

In general, black gets a bit more support for artifacts with Pactdoll Terror, Tithing Blade, Foul Play and Carrion Cruiser. It gets a bit of Insidious Roots support (see multi-color changes) in Assistant, Cruiser and Miner. And similar to the change in white, I'm moving out Defossilize for Lively Dirge, as I think small-ball reanimate generally will play better (and more often) than the larger reanimation effects.

For Blue, Censor is rotating out as part of forced rotation as it's now outside of the 8-year window for the cube. Refute will take it's place for now...other 3 mana value counterspells have performed well, but we'll see how the value from Refute stacks up.

Animating Faerie comes out, as Case of the Filched Falcon and Zoetic Glyph have proved themselves to be the preferred methods of artifact animation in blue. Diversion Unit comes in as another artifact for blue, which is starved for playable artifacts.

Wingblade for Preening Champion is speculative, I could see reverting it, but Preening has been one of the least played cards for a while in blue.

Unable to Scream and Stock Up are two cards that I'm probably too low on, and deserve their chance to prove themselves.

Get Out is a card I've heard positive things about from other curators, and is a nice synergy piece alongside Roiling Dragonstorm. Organ Hoarder has been one of the larger traps in the cube for some time, for folks who played MID and saw it's dominance there...it's just not well-suited for this environment.

With a little bit of data and experience with these cards, and with Draft Season 3 of the cube about to kick off on the Limited Level Ups discord, it's time for our Tarkir: Dragonstorm cube update. Since the cube is getting played as much as it is now, and with so many new sets coming out constantly, I've decided to adopt a "more is better" approach to cube changes. Getting more rotation to the cube is fun, and cards can always come back in a couple of months at the next "rotation".

For this rotation, I'm dropping the number of colorless cards by 5, with each color getting an additional card. In addition to the 8 Dragonstorm cards getting added in white, I'm trying out Dewdrop Cure for Late to Dinner, which is a card that has seen almost no play in the last couple of seasons...in general I think small creature reanimation will play better than large creature reanimation, but we'll see how it goes.

I think the other white changes are mostly side-grades without much need for explanation, but excited to see what Sunpearl Kirin can do. In general, white gets a bit more go-wide support alongside red this update, so interested to see if go-wide becomes a dominant strategy.

Adding a large chunk of Dragonstorm cards to the maybeboard, what essentially makes up the full list of cards I have any interest in. Many of these cards were discussed in my upcoming set review with Jank Diver Gaming. I expect around 25 cards from this list to get added, but as always, will wait to play the set and see some 17lands data before making final changes in a couple of weeks.

Quick change to reflect the fact that "draw matters" has become an important part of blue's identity in the cube.

Soulherder is good and Oji is fine, but ultimately both exist best in lower-removal environments. They haven't seen much success or even been drafted much in quite a long time, and mostly get played on the splash when they do. Soulherder specifically is worse in my environment than many, as many of my value 2-drops in the cube are "For Mirrodin!"-style equipment that can't be blinked by soulherder on turn 3.

Imhrahil gives UW a draw 2 signpost, giving 3 of the 4 blue pairs a clear "draw matters" signpost now. Faithless Mending plays well with blue's draw 2 payoffs along with Skyray and Containment Construct, but also has interesting potential in Esper shells, being able to trigger Snacker and Conscription on its own, while also triggering the WB life gain cards.

A large number of changes this time around, only half of which are actual Aetherdrift cards, with a lot of the other adds intended to support some of the Aetherdrift changes. Going color by color.

White
Gloryheath Lynx is the headliner here, performing increadibly well in the retail environment even with white lagging. Nesting Bot is a sideways change with Indebted Spirit, trying to leverage the artifact type here, though we lose some synergy with "heroic" effects. Veteran comes in as a bridge card, supporting some life gain / mill / discard, all themes that have either been boosted recently or in this update. Chwinga and Samwise are very similar effects, but ultimately think Chwinga plays better in my white section, especially alongisde For Mirrodin style equipment.

Blue: The headline addition from Aetherdrift is Skyray. I'm also bringing in Mako, and a number of cards intended to help support a small discard theme, including Lonely Sandbar. Filched Falcon and Cursed Windbreaker are attempts at upping the artifact count in blue, I don't feel confident about these, but blue is getting two gold artifact payoffs in this update, and the pickings are slim. Blowout I think is a massive get for blue in cube, and will play much better here than in retail.

Black
Black is all about synergy this update. Bauble and Momentum Breaker are good new Skyfisher targets. Wickerfolk plays in the artifact and graveyard space. Bitter Triumph is a removal spell that can trigger your discard payoffs. Archfiend is a test card to see how an expensive black creature with a buyout feels compared to Fell Beast, which was generally panned by my players. Thallid is another card that feels underpowered these days, so I'm bringing back Prowler as a different sacrifice option, though I don't feel strongly about that one.

Red
Galvanic Blast and Mako are the headline additions for different reasons, but I think Greasewrench is going to have a massive impact as well. Outpace Oblivion seems like a more relevant removal spell in the world of Skyfishers. Fuel the Flames is a test, I love Magic Missile, but Fuel can be a potential synergy card in the draw/discard space. Faithless Looting and Volatile Wanderglyph are very speculative additions...I like their potential to trigger draw/discard multiple times, something hard to find in the red section, but they'll be on a short leash.

Green
Two green 4-drops get switched out in the eternal search for relevant options...Witchstalker offers synergy potential, and Guardian can be a signpost for UG tempo, I'm interested to see how both play. Inkeeper was previously in the cube when there were fewer artifact and lifegain synergies, and I'd like to try it again. Incubation Sac has fallen off a cliff in terms of its play rate, and I think Dredger's Insight could be a fantastic cube addition, though might ask for a bit of support not currently in the cube.

Gold
UG gets a large makeover, starting with the fantastic Skyserpent Seeker. Vilespawn Spider was requested, and there are some new graveyard synergies entering with this update, so I think it could play well. Joint Exploration will get another run in the hybrid slot, it's basically just that vs Pond Prophet right now and Prophet didn't spark joy. I love Imoti but want to see what else can hold up in the expensive card advantage slot, and could imagine Make Your Own Luck performing well.

Five other additions from the retail environment, heavily focused on artifacts, with Beastrider as the exception. I'm at a place now where I have artifact payoffs / synergy cards in all of my gold sections except for UG, but couldn't bring myself to add back Wavesifter this time around. If Make Your Own Luck underperforms, it could get another run.

Colorless
Containment Construct and Network Terminal are back, and nods to potential discard synergies entering the cube. Hoverbike I think was generally quite bad, and Racer I see performing better in Voyage Home / Haunt the Network decks (I never really wanted to take it out in the first place). Sandstorm Verge was pretty speculative, Mirage Mesa holds its slot for now based on desert synergies but Night Market has to come in.

Svella has just not stood the test of time. It's intended to be a card for RUG / Jund attrition decks, but it doesn't seem to be getting people excited in those spots either.

The problem is that RG's gold cards are generally extremely one-note...."efficient creatures smash". So, with this change I'm going to try to at least support a larger RG deck, as opposed to the lower to the ground approach that most of the rest of the section supports. Invigorating Hot Springs is a card I'm skeptical of, but points much more in a "big assertive" direction at least, and Raging Swordtooth is probably the best "big assertive" payoff available.

Using the opportunity of the Aether Revolt rotation to try to make deserts / crime happen again. I wasn't overly pleased with the attempt last time, but I've played with it in some other cubes and appreciated it. The only "crime" payoffs coming in are card advantage payoffs in blue and UB, and I've got a very light "desert" payoff package coming in WRG.

With this change, artifacts are getting a little bit less support, and this is a change I'm monitoring closely. I could easily see this broad change getting reverted with Aetherdrift, if we see a lot of good artifacts / artifact payoffs in that set.

Not a massive number of changes coming to the cube with Foundations, note that cards in the Jumpstart set and the starter decks are not eligible for this cube.

I think the additions are all pretty meaningful. You can hear more about my thoughts on individual cards in the review I did with Jank Diver Gaming here.

Vampire Gourmand is a card that I was down on in the set review, and I'm still skeptical that it'll perform well in a high tempo environment like cube, but it's overperformed in retail to a degree that I didn't expect (in all archetypes, not just RB steal and sac), so I think it's worth testing. I'm also skeptical about Revenge of the Rats, but want to give it a try. I think the Timeless Witness > Elvish Regrower switch is marginal and can imagine reversing that at some point. Of the cards in the maybeboard, I think Faebloom Trick and Guarded Heir are the two with the most potential to make it in at some point.

Two changes to green outside of FDN...with other colors getting more and more cards that can be cast for different mana values, I wanted to go back to two cards that have previously been in the green section in Spinewoods Armadillo and Beanstalk Giant, both that give green access to a little bit more modality out of its large threats. Rise of the Varmints was mostly a failed experiment, and I'm hoping that Revenge of the Rats performs better.

With a lot of play and some top player data to reference, here are the changes coming to the cube from DSK. Twenty-Five non-lands, and 10 duals. With DSK entering, the 3 cards from KLD rotate. No major archetype changes, though with the reduction in DMU duals, I took out 1 domain payoff.

One change I'm excited about is a shifting of blue's CMC down by removing 2 3-drops for the 2 uncommons 2's from DSK. These cards won't often be played on turn 2, but hopefully will increase blue's ability to keep up on mana efficiency, something it has struggled with since the cube's inception.

A large set of cards getting added to the maybeboard with DSK, which I think will be the norm in the plooster era. Delirium and Enchantment matters cards could theoretically go in as packages, but I don't see enchantments getting added with this set, there aren't enough multi-type enchantments to excite me. The lands interest me, though likely not enough to displace any of the lands currently being used.

In the end, I expect 20-25 cards to get added, but as always will wait for some data to come in.

Green needed an extra cheap ETB, and I think branchwalker is the best available, but Wary Thespian is also reasonable. Possum is probably the best other "blink" card available in green after Tech-Wrecker and Stickytongue, I'm a little bit skeptical but others have reported good results.

Took / Trail / Greta / Minstrosity takes the number of GB food producers in the cube up to 18...there are already artifact and token synergy cards that work well with this, and then Greta and Trail as the only 2 cards that care specifically about food (with 2 cards in Took and Provisioner that can produce them over time). A little bit of graveyard recursion was sacrificed to make this happen, but in general I think those strategies were a little bit too strong to begin with, and we're adding in the UG "blink" as an alternative value approach. Savvy Hunter is probably the other card I'd be most interested in bringing in to support this, but feel that Great is probably a bit better.

A couple things to note with the BLB changes...

1. Trying to expand the reach of both UG "blink" and GB "food". I'll drop a companion changelist after this, to supplement the changes here.
2. Had hoped to be able to support UR spells more with this update, but I just don't think we got much of interest in BLB, unfortunately.
3. Overall think white makes out the best, but am hopeful that green gets some new ways to play.
4. There are a few cards that I think could have been added here, but just missed out and have a high chance of being added in the future:

Brightblade Stoat
Long River Lurker
Playful Shove
Flamecache Gecko

And a few more that would've been speculative / narrow, but I still have an eye on:

Blacksmith's Talent
Bonecache Overseer
Stocking the Pantry
Sunshower Druid
Tangle Tumbler

MH3 brings a large cube update. The largest change is again, to the mana base. Deserts / crime didn't end up playing as well as I hod hoped (a bit too parasitic) , and the MDFCs in MH3 seem very strong. I'm also intentionally giving white a couple more attrition tools with this update.