Some really sick combat tricks in this environment in Shore Up and Take up the Shield. Electrostatic Infantry, Guardian of New Benalia, and Quirion Beastcaller are good new threats and Cut Down continues to be a multi-format all star.

Winterthorn Blessing and Angelfire Ignition are excellent, giving some thematic depth to gold sections and a place to dump extra mana in an otherwise really low-to-the-ground environment. Raze the Effigy is great as very maindeckable artifact removal, and Homestead Courage is a mini Travel Preparations. Two spell triggers and two counters for two mana is pretty great.

Perhaps the most exciting addition is Finale of Promise, which I don't know how I overlooked up until this point. It can potentially trigger three spell casts for only three mana, and is a very splashy effect that is right at home here.

Keep cutting down that overall mana value! The cards I am most excited about are Monk of the Open Hand and Feign Death, both of which are great for the hardened scales deck. I also think I overlooked Quandrix Apprentice from STX, which turns all the tempo combat tricks into value spells.

Somehow missed this one mana fight spell with pump from STX. I think it should be quite good here.

Curve is low enough here that I think Repeal is preferred over Into the Roil.

Making the +1/+1 counter green cards less narrow. Hall of Oracles is actually great, and Incubation Druid is additional support for Jeskai Ascendancy.

Shardless Agent getting reprinted into Modern reminded me of it, and I realized it, and Cascade, is probably very good here. I guess the big downside is playing either onto an empty board is not great because any tricks you hit won't have targets, but other than that it seems like a perfect fit, and both Agent and Bloodbraid are higher up on the curve.

I'm also trying Jeskai Ascendancy, which I honestly can't remember if I have tried in this cube before? Ignoble Hierarch is another near perfect dork for the deck, and Birds joins Noble Hierarch to make the dork base best equipped to take advantage of Ascendancy. I hope it works!

Small change from Reckless Charge to Borrowed Hostility, which @anthony turned me on to in his Regular Cube. The kicked mode being able to target two creatures, instant speed, and getting to choose between the buff and first strike are big upsides over the flashback on Charge.

Cutting narrow, expensive, and underperforming cards to make room.

Most excited about Harmonic Prodigy here, which does extremely stupid stuff. Esper Sentinel and Ignoble Hierarch will also be very good. Suspend is the perfect interaction here, and I thing one of the rare places where it's better than a bounce spell on account of how cheap the threats are. Nested Shambler is a great target for +1/+1 counters and maybe a big trick, but could be too cute. Lose Focus is so great, I love it for pretty much every cube I am working on. The spicy inclusion here is Wandering Archaic, which I am curious to see how it plays.

Cuts are mostly expensive spells, but also some potentially polarizing "too good" cards like Mother of Runes, Grand Abolisher, and Snuff Out. Also cutting some cards that are not "too good", but maybe too generically good, like Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, who was also the only Planeswalker. With Snuff Out and Fire Covenant gone I think the Death's Shadow deck has taken a bit of a hit, but is probably still viable. Time will tell.

With more modular cards in MH2 and modular having natural synergy with the hardened scales and power-matters effects in the cube, I finally get to try and make a card I have always wanted to put in a cube work: Arcbound Ravager. Not sure what to expect of this deck, but I am excited to try it out.

Cuts are higher mana value cards that have not played an important role in any deck or are generally win-more.

I missed Undying Evil in the first version of the cube because I did not know the card existed and it did not come up in my various Scryfall searches for similar effects because the ability is keyworded. It's probably the best version of this effect, too, given the value of the +1/+1 counter in Scales decks or otherwise.

Happy to cut Boon as almost functionally identical to the cleaner Supernatural Stamina.

Mikaeus is excellent with any scales effect and also quite playable on his own. While Shepherd technically provides protection and triggers heroic, bouncing your own stuff back to your hand is not really what you want to be doing here.

Swarm Shambler is great, thanks to Drew for pointing it out to me. Even a very good topdeck with scales effects.

I think Chamber Sentry is a perfect balance of playable absent synergies given the power level of the environment, but obviously much better with scales effects. I love that it's colorless, too, and maybe someone will try to do five color nonsense and recur it?

Unsummon is a repeat effect I have a lot of already. Marwyn, the Nurturer is cute with tricks, but ultimately there isn't really anything to ramp into outside of Gargos. Devoted Druid is still there to perform that role.

I'm cutting some generic goodstuff — Ponder and Preordain — along with some overly ambitious combat trick focused stuff — Willbender and Cephalid Constable — for more tempo-focused blue cards. I consider these to be combat trick adjacent, but I am happy for the cube to stray a little further from purely combat tricks, as I've done recently with the "suicide black" archetype.

I initially overlooked this because almost all the instants and sorceries in this cube are very low CMC, making the payoff for a 4 mana Baneslayer pretty lackluster. However, after playing with it in STX limited, I want to test it out. Double strike is just great with combat tricks anyway.

Lots of good stuff here! The additions are pretty straightforward, I think.

As far as cuts go, I am:

• Getting rid of the idea that white can be the "anti-combat trick" color. With the addition of the great Magecraft cards from these sets I think white has enough tools that basically all the white decks will rely on a lot of spells, making Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Vryn Wingmare pretty sus.
• Cutting back on non-thematic removal, like Cast Down and Go for the Throat.
• Trimming redundant effects and underperforming, higher mana value cards, especially ones with minimal connection to the theme.

More 1 drops are always appreciated, and Selvala is a nice, big ramp creature, but there is very little to ramp into and she doesn't have any synergy with the scales deck.

I really like that it can target any number of creatures, so if it's not just used as a plague wind (which to be fair it might only be) it could lead to some really cool turns with tons of stacked triggers.