After 6 or so month of working on and testing this cube, I’m finally getting to a point where this list feels pretty stable. With no new sets in the immediate horizon, this update aims to get the cube to a 360 that I can keep locked in for the time being.

Drown in Sorrow > Bone Shards
Dread Return > Engine Rat
Guttersnipe > Rubblebelt Maaka
Fyndhorn Elves > Arbor Elf *added on 5/1/25
Filigree Familiar > Grisly Salvage *added on 5/14/25

One of my aesthetic goals for this cube is for it to be solely made up of cards that were printed as commons in a 1v1 limited environment. The pauper restriction is ultimately an arbitrary one but it feels a bit “not in the spirit” to include cards like whose only common printings were in commander draft sets. As such I’m cutting these 5 cards, although I’m definitely on the lookout for something to fill Guttersnipe's role in particular. The replacements are cards I’ve been wanting to test and couldn’t find room for previously, or in Fyndhorn Elves case I just went with a similar effect.

Gixian Infiltrator > Mardu Skullhunter
Hissing Iguanar > Witty Roastmaster

As much as I aspire for sacrifice to be a theme within black and red, these 2 cards that only pay you off when you have both a sacrifice outlet and some fodder to sacrifice feel a little weak in a cube without tokens. Skullhunter comes in as another solid value creature that black decks can play and then sacrifice again for value, while Roastmaster is a less powerful but more aggressive second copy of Molten Gatekeeper.

Underwater Tunnel // Slimy Aquarium > Jeskai Elder
Orcish Hellraiser > Fireslinger
Skophos Reaver > Splatter Thug
Savage Punch > Abundant Harvest

These cuts aim to reduce the cube’s complexity a bit, as they’re all the only instance of their ability/card type and none of them are strong enough to be missed. I am curious to see if I’ve got too many blue looters or green lay of the land effects with these additions, but I’d rather test a few and see which ones rise to the top.

Utter Insignificance > Weakstone's Subjugation
Voidpouncer > Red Herring

These two cards aren’t really good enough to justify their weird requirements of colorless mana. Subjugation is a blue arrest variant I’ve been wanting to try as it’s pretty efficient, while Herring is a nice aggressive creature with the ability to fish for better cards late game.

Dissolve > Sinister Sabotage
Corrupt Court Official > Skullcap Snail

Two small upgrades that I found while looking through cards for this update.

A few small updates to bring the list back up to 360.

This update includes some new tests from Tarkir Dragonstorm along with some older placeholder cards just to fill the list up closer to 360. TDM had a couple good designs but most of the best new cards are just minor upgrades over types of cards I was already running.

Ahead of Tarkir Dragonstorm, cutting back on a few combat tricks. They're solid in aggressive decks but these are the least exciting.

My first major update for this cube after its first 4 drafts. I’m trying out a lot of new cards from Aetherdrift, most notably I’m excited about Chitin Gravestalker and Grim Bauble. Beyond that I’ve added tweaked my gold cards section a little bit, fixed up black’s removal and discard suite to be more diverse, swapped some cards from green’s top end, changed up some of white's removal, and made a couple swaps to remove cards with complicated/wordy text.