Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Additions

Midnight Hunt introduces some solid, clean cards that are a perfect fit for Regular Cube.

Consider is a card I've wanted to see for at least as long as the Surveil keyword existed. I do wish Surveil was keyworded on this card. Generally uncommon keywords actually make cards less readable, but I just wish Surveil was used often enough for the shortcut to be meaningful. The gut reaction is to replace Opt, but I'm just going to include both, despite avoiding functionally similar cards.

Fading Hope is another "upgrade" to a classic card. While I'm not generally motivated by increasing the power level of individual cards, String of Disappearances is rarely played and it's text over Unsummon comes up just about never. A slightly powered up version of this effect with a more obvious upside feels like an improvement.

Odric's Outrider is the kind of card I enjoy playing with. Letting you distribute counters anywhere and make use of death triggers lets you set up interesting game plans. On power level, especially at 4 mana here it's probably a little low, but maybe it not being kill-on-sight will be an upside. Also in white, Loyal Gryff is impossible for a Whitemane Lion fan to pass up. I like it less that the ability is a free roll rather than a build around or something you have to work towards. I may end up swapping it for Stonecloaker which I don't really know why I haven't already included.

Wraths have been a bit difficult to balance and Vanquish the Horde is an interesting one. In this environment, being as efficient, if not more than Wrath of God is not unlikely, and the bar for Wrath's is higher (or lower?) then that here. But I don't think it's going to hit the point where you can do absolutely nothing and hold back a wrath. I like that it flavorfully reenforces the idea of punishing overcommitting to the board in a mechanical way. I'm happy to go up another wrath if the balance is right, and wide strategies have been a bit dominant.

Fleshtaker is potentially a risky one, offering more support to already dominant strategies; however, these have mostly been successful in black-red, so I think seeding a signpost card in another color pair may actually nerf token, sacrifice decks a bit. It's just a cool card. I love that it rewards you with immediate board presence at a high cost, gives you filtering, but not strict card advantage, benefits from building towards it, and has my favorite cost for an activated ability.

Reverted Changes

I'm reverting a few past changes with this update, including swapping Barrin, Tolarian Archmage back to Man-o'-War. I liked the addition of opportunities for more play patterns and interactions with other cards, but the added complexity hasn't felt worth it over a classic and perfectly simple card. Maybe more importantly, in this context the card advantage Barrin can generate is extremely valuable, tilting it's main use case way in the opposite direction. From a card like this, I'm much happier for the main mode to be a tempo play.

Neither Bushmeat Poacher or Spark Reaper is perfect and both are a little below par, but as the cube has evolved I'm happier to have the cheaper option that doesn't block quite as well that still has some relevance in the late game. Can't forget, it's also a zombie.

Wee Dragonauts is also a bit below rate here so I begrudgingly swapped it for the technically strictly better Umara Mystic. In retrospect the extra text is such a trinket and suggests something that isn't really happening I just don't find it worth it. More importantly, I can't abide trading down the fantastic illustration on Wee Dragonauts.

Gold Cards

The history of this cube has mostly involved cutting down on gold cards. It's gotten light in some guilds and in general it's felt like a reasonable mix. I'm both cutting some gold cards that haven't been playing well and upping the count to square up the color pairs a bit.

Some notable changes, I'm cutting Master of Death (not surprisingly) and Mayhem Devil. The devil went unplayed for the longest time. But red, black sacrifice has become pretty dominant and I don't love some of the play patterns both for being easy to miss and sometimes pretty oppressive.

Contraband Kingpin and Lorescale Coatl are a just a bit underwhelming.

The additions are generally focused on trying to be the right amount of power above mono colored cards and the right degree of signaling some synergies. Many of these additions are pretty speculative. We'll see how they go.

Persist

Although I don't intend to support any "combos" in a certain sense I like a lot of cards individually that happen to in theory add up to the persist combo. It being more like an occasion easter egg for experienced players seemed neat. In practice it was more of a trap. I'm at the very least scaling that back cutting Safehold Elite and Lesser Masticore. The Masticore has also always felt appealing but been underwhelming in practice.

Other Minor Changes

Ghost Quarter and Field of Ruin have been around as a low-efficiency way to offer some interaction for Land Folk and bounce lands, but have not even been played as sideboard cards.

Another break in functional duplicates, I'm adding Chromatic Sphere and Mishra's Factory just cause I like them so much.