Quick change I made after receiving the new cards an hour before we played. Most of these picks were rushed and I don't expect a lot of them to stick.

I don't actually have bloodbraid elf on me rn lmao

I'll have 2000 new cards to try after this week's session. For now I want to try out a couple of swaps:

ADDED

Academy Ruins & Mindslaver - Classic combo that might work since I have plenty of artifact synergies and land tutors

Deranged Hermit - Its cousin, Deep Forest Hermit, is everything I want in a green five drop. It creates ~10 power, provides many bodies for cards like opposition and goblin bombardment, and works in plenty of archetypes like blink and recurring nightmare. I'd like a second copy.

Ancient Stone Idol - Works with most cheat spells and is the easiest target to hard cast. I like its flexibility.

Phyrexian Arena - I drafted Esper control last week and realized that proactive decks have more card advantage than reactive decks these days. If a single threat gets through,
it's usually a 3 for 1 and the reactive deck can't catch up with their 1 for 1 removal. It is similarly impossible to negate that card advantage using board wipes because not every threat is a creature (smuggler's copter, planeswalkers, etc.). I'm adding Phyrexian Arena as a way for reactive decks to climb back against 3 for 1 threats while burying the opponent in card advantage if they can control the game for long enough.

Bloodbraid Elf - Huntmaster kinda sucks now in vintage cube. I was using him as a temporary replacement for Minsc & Boo, but I need to swap him out. He's too fair, which I never thought I'd say. Bloodbraid Elf is probably better until I can find a suitable replacement.

Fiend Artisan - Cool card that's a better Grim Flayer.

REMOVED

Custodi Lich - Boring Card.

Spellseeker - Boring Card that rarely does anything important. Sometimes it grabs a timewalk, sometimes it grabs a channel, sometimes it grabs a removal spell, but it always feels slow and unnecessary.

Thing in the Ice - I've seen this get played a handful of times and it has never flipped. Most of my players like this card but are averse to drafting it on account of its unreliability in limited.

Elder Gargaroth - This surprised me the most. It does nothing! It either immediately eats a removal spell or the board state is not open enough to attack for its triggers.

Grim Flayer - Dud. Saw play a few times and remained a 2/2 trampler each time. It's only good if you can turn it on by turn 3 or 4 and that is sadly a pipe dream - even for dredge decks.

Dread Return - This card doesn't see play. It's too expensive for reanimator decks and too difficult to flash back in dredge decks. Maybe it'll return when the new package of cards arrive so I can add additional support for dredge, but that's a big maybe. I also don't mind shaving off a reanimate spell from the cube because I think that archetype is too consistent right now.

Huntmaster of the Fells - So much card advantage, not enough board presence. Unless this card is flipped, you're not attacking with it. He feels more like an engine than a threat because all you want to do is flip him over and over again. He's too slow and I want my GR section to focus more on board presence than card advantage.

IN:

Hullbreaker Horror

OUT:

Atraxa, Grand Unifier

Fuck this card fuck this card fuck this card fuck this card fuck this card fuck this card

If magic cards were health problems, Atraxa would be terminal brain cancer. Anyone who hasn’t directly played with / against this card will not understand how format warping she is.

By merely touching the battlefield a single time, Atraxa completely invalidates every other card that got played in a game. She instantly stabilizes you against ANY board state, provides a 3 turn evasive clock WHILE PROTECTING YOU, AND draws you ~seven cards from the top 10 of your deck. She needs to be removed immediately, however, the bigger problem is that she almost always draws into another way to replay her.

This very consistently leads to catch 22 gameplay loops where she gets reanimated, finds another reanimation spell, dies to removal, gets reanimated, finds another reanimation spell, dies to removal, gets reanimated ...
over and over and over again - while netting six cards each time. The fact that she looks at the top TEN cards means that a reanimator deck only needs to run four reanimation spells for her to hit one consistently each time.

I’m not even exaggerating when I say that she probably has a 90%+ winrate in my cube. I’ve seen her played at least 15 times and I can’t remember a single game where she lost.

Let’s compare her to Griselbrand, which was previously the best reanimation target:

Gridelbrand’s Upsides

• Can activate his draw 7 more than once per turn (if you have the life to pay for it).

• Only one color.

Atraxa’s Upsides

• Draws ~7 cards without spending life, meaning that your opponent can never aggro you out to prevent it. This also lets you repeatedly draw 7 much easier than griselbrand since Atraxa draws into more cards which re-trigger her draw 7, whereas Griselbrand typically needs to refuel through combat.

• Has vigilance so that you can kill your opponent while remaining stabilized. This means that there is never a board state in which going on the offensive could lead to you dying on the backswing. Even if you and your opponent swing out at each other, Atraxa has a 21 point life swing per turn compared to Griselbrand’s 14.

• Looks at the top 10 cards instead of the top 7, which gives you a far greater chance to find another reanimation spell to nullify your opponent’s removal. For Atraxa you only need 4 reanimation spells in your deck to be consistent, whereas Griselbrand requires 6.

• Has deathtouch just in case your opponent has enough damage in the air to block her. She already dominates the board in 99% of games, but deathtouch ensures that your opponent will NEVER be able to trade favorably with her in combat.

• Mostly immune to bounce spells since her draw 7 is an etb ability.

• Works with Natural Order AND flash.

• Costs 1 less mana.

Gee, I wonder which one is the better card?

I hastily replaced Atraxa with Hullbreaker Horror from my sideboard, which immediately got played in a mono blue high tide deck. I have a feeling that the horror will stick around for some time. Its effects are fun and powerful without being oppressive - AKA the perfect cheat target.

Fuck you Atraxa