Adding Lightning Skelemental for now to the Pirates list to not be unbalanced in my final count. Might be just a placeholder for now. We'll see if anything replaces it in the future.

I wanted to be an aggro archetype and with Pirates getting more support in Magic, figured I'd try my hand with this. I favoured cards with Raid and Treasure: Raid to teach about the importance of the post-combat main, Treasure to give a fun alternate win condition with Revel in Riches if the aggro plan fails.

There's also a slight discard theme as well as a slight sacrifice theme throughout. I'm hoping future releases will support these a little more.

I found myself going back-and-forth between Storm Fleet Sprinter and Marauding Looter for the uncommon. Ultimately, I decided to support the discard theme a bit more with (and went with Marauding Looter), while the side got the aggro theme with Dire Fleet Warmonger.

Tag: "Grixis PIRATES"

Update: I was originally going to include Dire Fleet Poisoner in the Pirates list, but after some thought, I'm going to add it to Flash instead and cut the terrible Bloodcrazed Paladin from Flash. Poisoner works by itself, and has splash synergy with Pirates. I really wanted Fathom Fleet Captain and Revel in Riches as my B rares, so this works out for the best.

Adding Doom Blade for now to the Flash list to not be unbalanced in my final count. Might be just a placeholder for now. We'll see if anything replaces it in the future.

When IKO came out and we got Slitherwisp, I knew I found my mechanic. It fortunately got pared with and I was able to lean into the flying creatures a bit with Thunderclap Wyvern.

The biggest drawback to the archtype is , especially at uncommon. There aren't that many uncommon spells with Flash in all of Magic; just 5, in fact. Muck Drubb and Offalsnout both have extra mechanics that would be one-ofs in the Cube (which I'm trying to avoid if possible) and Necromancy isn't exactly new player friendly. Fortunately, I found Faerie Tauntings, which I think is exactly the type of effect the archetype wants, but that puts A LOT of pressure on the 3cmc slot for the deck. 's rares are also very meh. Unfortunately, there's not much better to be honest.

I'm hoping that future sets will help balance and flesh out the archetype. Right now, I rate it a 6.5 or 7 out of 10. It has tremendous potential, though.

In . I added Hollowhenge Spirit but I've still got Stonecloaker in the back of my mind if HHS isn't pulling its weight.

I'm hoping it helps teach players to play reactive Magic without it being to oppressive.

Tag: "Esper FLASH"

This archetype is done for now, but that's mostly because the current available card pool for it is small and weak.

This is the archetype I'm most looking at either upgrading or changing.

Because the Intro Planeswalker is Huatli, Dinosaur Knight, it sort of forced Boros to be Dinosaur focused, which is fine, I'm sure it can be a fun archetype, but the best dinosaurs right now are in , but here can only be the minor support colour.

in particular is lacking in "umph" and cohesion. It's lacking in Enrage dinos, it doesn't have dinos that care about power, I'm even forced to use a dino with Ascend. When you're trying to lower complexity for beginners, having a single card with a completely different mechanic that only appears once doesn't help.

Priest of the Wakening Sun isn't ideal, nor is Imperial Lancer, honestly. But they're currently the only/best available options for the archetype at those rarities and at lower CMCs.

I've been looking at Glaring Aegis or better yet Solid Footing but there's not enough Vigilance in dinos either.

In , I was looking at Go for Blood, the only fight affect in at common but I didn't want a one-of Cycling card in the cube either. So I added Undying Rage, which I'm not married to.

This archetype also currently lacks a payoff at the rare slot. Sure, we have Sun-Blessed Mount in there currently, but it really needs a payoff dino at rare.

The biggest drawback to the card limits I imposed on myself for this cube meant having to decide between 4 great uncommons in : Savage Stomp, Snapping Sailback, Ranging Raptors and Thunderherd Migration. I went with the first two over the latter two and I'm not entirely sure those were the correct choices. I'll be looking at these cards in particular to see if the archetype ends up needing one over the other.

Overall, I'm not thrilled with what I have here and I'll be looking to future sets to help improve this with more exciting updates.

Tag: "Naya DINOS"

More Zendikar mechanics, but it worked out with what was available to the Jund combinations.

Originally this was supposed to be just straight up Landfall, but I had to add Awaken-type mechanics to flesh it out a bit more.

Tag: "Jund AWAKENFALL"

After a long time of not knowing what to make of this Cube in general, ZNR came out and the Temur Kicker archetype enthralled me. I quickly developed the ground rules for this cube entirely through the development of this archetype.

This was the first archetype that really spoke to me and the foundation for this entire cube, so it's only fitting that it be added/updated first.

Tag: "Temur KICKER"