After shelving this project for over three years, the release of Lost Caverns of Ixalan has me descending on this list once again. In my absence, gained the “exile noncreature, nonland from graveyard” archetype in Strixhaven, we’ve seen the return of Flashback and introduction of Disturb in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow, the return of Unearth in Brother’s War, the introduction of Collect Evidence in Murders at Karlov Manor, and of course, new Threshold/Delirium contender Descend (or Fathomless Descent) in Lost Caverns of Ixalan. New discard outlets in Modern Horizons 2 serve to augment existing Madness archetypes, Mill was keyworded, and green solidified its design space in recurring permanent cards from the graveyard.

In terms of cube shifts, I’m completely facelifting the gold section to offer a limited selection of more powerful options that would actually draw players toward those colors and serve as better signposts instead of just taking up cube slots. Mana fixing has been increased with Murder at Karlov Manor’s Surveil Duals and a proxy set of fetches. I’m also cutting antiquated offenders (mainly creatures) whose power ceiling were comparable to the floors of more modern cards, and cut the cube down from 540 to 450 to offer a more streamlined experience.

Lastly, I’m loosely standardizing self mill effects, as follows:

• Cards milled per each of your upkeeps via recurring effects: ~1
• Cards milled via one-time effects that also “draw” a card  (typically by selecting amongst cards) or are attached to a body: ~3-4