Baldur's Gate time! This is Part 1 of 2 regarding some transitional changes to the cube, with the second half coming alongside Double Masters. The goal of these changes is to further sharpen up some of the archetypes, paying particular attention to the following:

1. Reanimator. Black is in an awkward spot in this cube since the artifact synergies are generally weak. That leaves combo (leaning on heavy tutoring), sacrifice, control, and reanimator as the color's primary archetypes. At first, I thought I could make the color work by stripping some of 's parasitic reanimator cards, but it isn't working well. You just need a critical mass of discard outlets and wordy reanimation spells for the deck to be worth drafting, and I want some version of it in the cube. So, you'll see more cards like this working their way back into the list at the expense of more generic black cards that may be more powerful in a wider variety of decks. I personally hate stuff like Dance of the Dead and Shallow Grave for being excessively complex and/or caring about graveyard order. Also, the instant-speed spells of this type are only really effective in typical vintage cubes because you can respond to Eldrazi's shuffle triggers to bring them back for a turn, which I don't have in my list. Fortunately, we got Altar of Bhaal and Nautiloid Ship this set to help out while preserving the artifact theme, so I'm optimistic.

2. Green. I want to be careful in differentiating ramp from mono-brown artifact ramp by having the effects be on creatures. Similarly, I want to continue to allow Green to hate hard on artifacts while successfully doing its thing (getting bodies on the board & lands in play). You'll see some small tweaks with Double Masters to this effect.