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Announcement Date: September 29, 2024

Changes:

• Dockside Extortionist is banned.
• Jeweled Lotus is banned.
• Prisoner's Dilemma is swapped.

Other:

Detailed explanations for each of these are below.

Estimated Date for Tabletop: October 15, 2024

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Dockside Extortionist ➡️ Ignite the Future

Dockside Extortionist definitely isn't as good in a limited format, but it's still pretty powerful. Not enough for me to remove it on those considerations alone, but due to the fact that the card was specifically named and banned, it's outta here.

My take on the official banlist and its changes are as such: if a card is specifically named there for any reason, I will not have it in this cube. Cards are banned, justly or not, and mirrored here to reflect potential considerations in my players' own Commander format decks. I will not include Primeval Titan or Biorhythm, or now Jeweled Lotus, because of this. I don't want my players to suddenly think that Shahrazad is suddenly something they legally plan to hit us all with three hours into a Commander game. That's Powered cube bullshit.

All the playtest stuff, silver border, and otherwise are easily weeded out via visual recognition, and are unlikely to be included in their own personal decks. That's it. Many of these silly inclusions were designed with kitchen table, multiplayer, Commander in mind (especially Unfinity), and I want to elevate that part of Magic's history and design to a place where people can see it. Plus, silver border was for a very limited time legal in Commander following the release of Unstable, and a few of these Gavin Verhey Un-Known Playtest Events were specifically designed around Commander, so I felt the need to include it. The Commander Rules Committee is working hard to bring that back in some form or another, so we'll see.

Prisoner's Dilemma ➡️ Light Up the Stage

I like when players have to make choices, but there's a big swing possible in Prisoner's Dilemma, but it doesn't interact with the board and is likely often just a dead card in hand. I've replaced it with more impulse draw, specifically one that benefits from attacking other players.

Jeweled Lotus ➡️ Urza's Cave

Jeweled Lotus is stupid good, even here. I was very against giving everybody an Arcane Signet to scale past the more aggressive creature based decks (you gotta draft it), and to prevent early midrange strategies, and Jeweled Lotus fills a similar role. It just felt too iconic to not include it. Now that it's banned, I've cut it in favor of utility land grabbing or mana fixing in Urza's Cave. Urza's Cave also lends itself well to the Dredge/Delirium archetype, and has several synergies with existing cards. Grabbing an Argoth, Sanctum of Nature or Volrath's Stronghold is very enticing.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

Selfless Squire ➡️ A Girl and Her Dogs

Selfless Squire is such a blowout card, I feel that it's often a dead card in hand. Instead, I've added another Rabblemaster variant.

Declaration in Stone ➡️ Dollmaker's Shop // Porcelain Gallery

Removal used to be a premium and now there's too much of it. More token generation is always good, and the modal nature of this spell is fantastic.

Staying Power ➡️ Enduring Innocence

Staying Power lacked good targets, so a replacement was on the table. More token generation AND incidental lifegain is fantastic for at least two different archetypes.

Sanguine Bond ➡️ Enduring Tenacity

Sanguine Bond is rather plain, this is a mana cheaper and might end up being easier to interact with due to the high number of exile creature effects, and has a formidable stat line.

The Eldest Reborn ➡️ Funeral Room // Awakening Hall

The Eldest Reborn is great card design, but it ultimately feels limited in the multiplayer style of this format. More Blood Artists are good, and having one that Living Deaths is really saucy. Expect big plays.

Return the Favor ➡️ Untimely Malfunction

Cutting red interaction that never really did much is just part of the job.

Chaos Wrap ➡️ Wormhole Warp

Another easy swap, as Chaos Wrap makes a permanent very hard to kill.

Wheel of Potential ➡️ Charred Foyer // Warped Space

Consistent draw to replace a single use case one is smart, but the additional mana unrestriction is what really pushes this over the top.

Hua Tuo, Honored Physician ➡️ Tyvar, the Pummeler

Hua Tuo to the polls.

Wilt ➡️ Naturalize 2

Still not sold on this, but the fact that you can kill The Initiative or Monarch is beautiful.

Tivit, Seller of Secrets ➡️ Narod, the Beige Flower

Tivit, Seller of Secrets kind of sucks, and doesn't really fit any of the roles its colors are after. A Doran, the Siege Tower reshapes the field and can offer some very stax-y type combat steps.

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Report

No reports.

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Notes

No notes.

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

None as of yet.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

Tiny update, just removing a sort-of-not-great card for a real one.

Joven and Chandler ➡️ Slicer, Hired Muscle

Joven and Chandler is fine, but not exciting to run as a commander. I figured I'd add another copy of Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos to help end games quicker. I'm really waiting for a copy of The Crimson Avenger to fill the slot, but this will do in the mean time. I might still need more removal, but we'll have to actually test to make those decisions.

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Notes

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

Selfless Squire ➡️ A Girl and Her Dogs
Declaration in Stone ➡️ Dollmaker's Shop // Porcelain Gallery
Staying Power ➡️ Enduring Innocence
Sanguine Bond ➡️ Enduring Tenacity
The Eldest Reborn ➡️ Funeral Room // Awakening Hall
Return the Favor ➡️ Untimely Malfunction
Chaos Wrap ➡️ Wormhole Warp
Wheel of Potential ➡️ Charred Foyer // Warped Space
Hua Tuo, Honored Physician ➡️ Tyvar, the Pummeler
Wilt ➡️ Naturalize 2
Tivit, Seller of Secrets ➡️ Narod, the Beige Flower

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

The Bloomburrow update! Not a ton of cards, but definitely some cool ones. Offspring looks great, and the flavor of the set is a home run.

White

Thraben Doomsayer ➡️ Warren Warleader

Doomsayer is fine, though less than ideal, and the 5 life bonus is too hard to hit without accidentally dying. Warleader does a solid Leonin Warleader impression, and the scalability and modal nature definitely sell it.

Blue

Forger's Foundry ➡️ Pollywog Prodigy

Ditching a Spells Matter mana rock, which seems fun for more Build-a-Beast support. I feel like the cube should always lean more on creatures as we want games to actually end.

Black

Demon of Dark Schemes ➡️ Osteomancer Adept

Demon may return, but we're chopping it for more Dredge in the form of Osteomancer Adept, is like Underworld Breach for creatures, and is repeatable. Absolutely huge.

Red

Witty Roastmaster ➡️ Agate Instigator

This is a straight upgrade with an addition kicker option.

Rolling Earthquake ➡️ Coruscation Mage

Cutting another sweeper in favor of a Spells Matter guy. Guttersnipe, it is not, but two bodies means it's harder to kill.

Green

Genesis Wave ➡️ Scurry of Squirrels

Genesis Wave was originally intended for a Simic ramp archetype, but this was removed when I pushed it towards Hydras, Evolve, and Tyranids, cards costing >, making it worse than useless in those styles of decks. Instead, another +1/+1 counter card to keep that hydra engine going.

Gold

Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance ➡️ Mizzix of the Izmagnus

Quick simple change to better align the card with the archetype. Signposts are really important in this cube, and I'd prefer less confusion on my drafters.

Colorless

HELIOS One ➡️ Karn's Bastion

HELIOS One is probably too slow to make drafters excited, so I've instead opted for a more niche card which helps support mostly Simic or Green-heavy decks. Plus, who wouldn't want to kill someone with Skrelv, Defector Mite a little faster?

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Notes

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

Selfless Squire ➡️ A Girl and Her Dogs
Chaos Wrap ➡️ Wormhole Warp
Hua Tuo, Honored Physician ➡️ Teferi, Druid of Argoth
Wilt ➡️ Naturalize 2

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

Another small adjustment, this time removing some role players which lack proper support to be effective, as well as introducing a couple more focused cards which fuel themselves.

Black

Sever the Bloodline ➡️ Chthonian Nightmare
Reassembling Skeleton ➡️ Demon of Dark Schemes
Emrakul, the Promised End ➡️ Stone Idol Generator
Flayer of Loyalties ➡️ HELIOS One

Energy is cool. These cards all sort of stand on their own, specifically pushing different archetypes. Chthonian Nighmare is for the Dredge decks to abuse, Demon is more of a control card for the Thieves deck. Stone Idol Generator synergizes well with Tokens and produces them as well, and HELIOS One is a slow but interesting take on the Blast Zone style of lands, great for Stax. Each can produce and spend them for benefit, and there's already a few other cards which work well with energy. We'll see if they work out. It's a fun experiment.

Eldrazi Conscription ➡️ Excalibur, Sword of Eden

These cards are similar enough. Excalibur is considerably more playable given the cost reduction, and it's an equipment which can be fetched.

Voltaic Key ➡️ Lost Jitte
Primal Amulet ➡️ Pip-Boy 3000

Key doesn't seem to do much in this cube, so it was an easy cut. Primal Amulet suffers as most effects don't work well with copying, save for maybe some card drawing spells. Ettij and Pip-Boy 3000 are both modal-ish equipments that add to the decision making process in combat, making them flexible picks for a variety decks, even outside the Modified archetype.

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Notes

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

No changes.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

This is a small adjustment to Black to better align the color to the archetypes it should represent.

Black

Grave Pact ➡️ Black Market Connections

Grave Pact is often an awful card to be sitting across the table from. I've decided to remove it in favor of Phyrexian Arena Mk. II. This should help players from mistakes in overcommitting as well as provide additional weird value outlets. Many people value it above Pyrexian Arena, but I doubt many of them are sitting next to a Heartless Hidetsugu player or a goad deck. This should force players to make meaningful choices when selecting their life loss, and should be an interesting mini-game.

The Eldest Reborn ➡️ Virtue of Persistence

Eldest is great, but I was looking for something less blatant than a Thieves card that has to stick around for a few turns and makes less immediate enemies. This is great removal, and can sit in exile as your eighth card for a long time before swinging the game in your favor.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed ➡️ Blight Titan

This was a tough one. Mikaeus is quite strong, but it's also not something that plays particularly well with the Dredge deck, and is more an Aristocrats style design. I've cut it in favor of the self-milling and graveyard focused Blight Titan, bigger, meaner, and does a weird Grave Titan impression but relies on the 'yard.

Profane Command ➡️ Ebondeath, Dracolich

Another Command out. The card can still do work, but it doesn't really advertise the Dredge archetype as well as I would like. Here there be dead dragons, re-useable, flashy. I do love a glass cannon.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet ➡️ Shelob, Dread Weaver

Kalitas was pretty powerful for some time in the Powered cube, eventually outclassed by more efficient options. Shelob is a similar enough card, but it also steals, perfect for Thieves.

Nuclear Fallout ➡️ Viconia, Drow Apostate

Nuclear Fallout will probably come back soon, but I'd like to test this randomized Oversold Cemetery on a stick. Random is an absolutely massive downside, but you do get to put it in the command zone. Usually just getting "something" is fine enough in a Commander match.

Urborg Scavengers ➡️ Undead Butler

After cutting Rayami, First of the Fallen, I wasn't really sure I wanted these effects in the cube. They disrupt the Dredge deck incredibly efficiently and prevent the re-use of your own creatures if you're running it at the helm. Undead Butler is a better version of Mire Triton, and with the Gravedigger stapled on it, I'm sold.

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Notes

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

No changes.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

Another tiny update from Assassin's Creed, brought to us by our friends from the studio that won't make another Rayman game for no reason. Viva Legends!

Blue

Aetherize ➡️ Desynchronization

Aetherize is kind of fun as a fog, but there's something to be said about not being able to completely prevent something. I don't like Cyclonic Rift effects, especially sweepers that stall the game in multiplayer. Spending a whole turn playing things to have them all end up in your hand isn't a great experience, and you might have to end up discarding things in the next twenty minutes it takes to go around the table. At least this one doesn't hit commanders or artifacts and is symmetrical so you have to be strategic, so hopefully players can actually win through it. Plus I love the art. These games are treasures.

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Report

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Notes

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

No changes.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

A small update from Assassin's Creed, brought to us by our friends from the studio that still hasn't brought us Beyond Good & Evil 2.

White

Cradle of Vitality ➡️ Caduceus, Staff of Hermes

Cradle is such an insane card in the right deck, but that's the only place it's remotely playable. Instead, I've replaced it with the Caduceus which fits into both lifegain (where it's strong) and modified based decks.

Red

Dire Fleet Daredevil ➡️ Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos

Dire Fleet Daredevil is one of those cards where it looks really cool when you read it, but in practice it's not great. The first strike is really the key ability. Instead I've replaced it with a stupid, angry creature. I love these sort of gift-and-grift creatures, if you couldn't tell. I just want people to actually end their Commander games!

Big Score ➡️ The Spear of Leonidas

Drawing cards is cool, but four mana and discarding to get there hurts. Instead, have this weird modal equipment that bashes, brings new friends, and buys you some gas with rummage. Should be good in modified decks, but might be a player in other weird brews.

Multicolor

The Eleventh Doctor ➡️ Sokrates, Athenian Teacher

Matt Smith isn't as great as I'd hoped. It's outclassed by most other decks when it actually needs to do anything. Nobody is gonna let you get passed a blocker for free spells. But So-Crates is much more my deal. The card is similar enough to Gwafa Hazid that I'm jumping on the Philosophy Express. 0/4 with damage prevention, ways to break other Stax cards which prevent card draw. Love it.

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Notes

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

No changes.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Changes

This is a big one, so read up! I've followed the changelog styling of good friend @AlexanderOfMacedonia, so you'll finally sort of see why I made these changes.

One of the main choices I've made here is the lowering of average Mana Value. Not by a lot, it's slow work, altogether a bit necessary if players get mana screwed (hey, Trevor).

White

White Plume Adventurer ➡️ Seasoned Dungeoneer

I'm swapping White Plume to my MOX 1138: A Vintage Cube, due to some power level complaints I had about Seasoned. Overall, I think the switch is beneficial to each cube, the four-drop is considerably more fair in a multiplayer environment, and the three-drop slots into aggressive decks much better.

March of Otherwordly Light ➡️ Argent Dais

This card is really neat, like Oblation on a stick. It's a repeatable effect which triggers even when opponent's attack. For Stax, this is great, but I think it's probably useful for a whole smattering of decks. The two cards is definitely manipulative in a way I enjoy, "Is it worth it? I got two cards so it must've been!"

Winds of Abandon ➡️ Redemption Arc

A big downsize on targets, but Redemption can be put on your creatures or your opponent's, forcing them to bash people. Hell yeah! Based on some anecdotes, it did appear that the cube had too many sweepers, especially those that exile, so this seemed only natural. Sick art from Dominik Mayer, too!

Deulist's Heritage ➡️ Staying Power

I cut maybe the most divisive enchantment. Never in a million years did it feel fair to play with or against, as you could target your opponent's creatures with it. Instead, we've replaced it with a busted build-around from Unhinged. Hopefully someone can break this in half, but as it's symmetrical, maybe your opponents will?

Luminous Broodmoth ➡️ Rosie Cotton of South Lane

Go-wide strategies are easier in multiplayer formats, as interaction seems to be used more sparsely. Unfortunately, since the format heavily favors tokens, Luminous doesn't really benefit those builds. Rosie is a good replacement, a sort of permanent anthem.

Halvar, God of Battle ➡️ Codsworth, Handy Helper

Halvar is a fine four-drop, doubling as an equipment. Double-strike is nothing to scoff at, but there's already so many "free" equips that can be done at lower mana costs, so I've cut him for a cheaper card that could double as Stax or mana for equipments.

Giant Killer ➡️ Guide of Souls
Stroke of Midnight ➡️ Maul of the Skyclaves

Removed some more targeted removal in favor of two archetypal cards, Orzhov lifegain and Boros modified. Removal is already at an all time high, and I'd rather scale it back to help players invest in more interesting board states and hold more valuable removal for the more important plays.

Blue

Arcane Savant ➡️ Control Magic.

Turns out I still dislike Arcane Savant. Anything that purely breaks the color requirements of Commander is not great in my book. More Thief stuff, though!

Jacob Hauken, Inspector ➡️ Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy
Sea Gate Stormcaller ➡️ Will Kenrith

I have a strong desire to make the Izzet spells deck really breakout with some powerful commanders. While the previous cards were fine, they never really pushed the envelope hard enough. Let's test these.

K-9, Mark I ➡️ Fatespinner

A little more proactive help in the Stax department.

Knowledge Exploitation ➡️ Danny Pink
Brine Elemental ➡️ Toothy, Imaginary Friend
Vesuvan Shapeshifter ➡️ Chasm Skulker
Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar ➡️ Wizard Class
Treasure Cruise ➡️ Dreamtide Whale
Confounding Riddle ➡️ Proft's Eidetic Memory
Mission Briefing ➡️ Tezzeret's Gambit

Goodbye Pickles!

This is a massive push toward making Blue into a compatible shell for Simic Hydras. Proliferate, +1/+1 counter oddities have all been mulled over, and these are the best options. Hydras is difficult in Simic, but more recent printings of creatures, especially Tyranids are great ways to explore this space without full Kindred control.

Most of the chosen cards are support instead of hitters, but it's important to have both. Since many of these are untested, I'll definitely be watching for any sort of sub-optimal plays.

Black

Yahenni, Undying Partisan ➡️ Tinybones, the Pickpocket

Yahenni didn't really fit into any archetype all that well, so I'm glad to have a new Tinybones Thief cards in my repetoire.

Bitterblossom ➡️ Emperor of Bones

Turns out not every cube needs Bitterblossom effects, especially when those effects are merely goodstuff and fail to adhere to any existing Black archetype, or sacrifice at all. Here's a new Thief card instead.

Out of the Tombs ➡️ Ripples of Undeath

Out of the Tombs didn't work as I thought it did, so it's being cut for the weird Dredge Sylvan Library thing, which is more in line with what I expected.

Red

Bitter Reunion ➡️ Wheel of Potential

Some draw is good, in this case, three mana draw three could be very helpful. I'm also not entertaining that "but it works this way, technically bullshit." I get it, but you know exactly how it works. Probably cool with the Guide of Souls and Aetherworks Marvel type stuff.

Green

Sakura-Tribe Elder ➡️ Doric, Nature's Warden
Magus of the Library ➡️ Territory Culler
Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer ➡️ Six

One thing @AlexanderOfMacedonia brought up to me last year was to always put in the full clutch of lands in a Commander deck so that you are always able to play your spells on curve. You don't need "Ramp" because getting ahead on lands is unnecessary due to game length, life totals, and other factors, thinning is essentially useless as well.

I've decided to restructure the Ramp package into something more passive in terms of increasing the acceleration of mana, pushing cool stuff like Landfall, Dredge, Retrace, and all those sorts of things instead. Lands as a resource, but not really the one that you would think. I'm still leaving in Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, as those also keep you on the curve.

Arasta of the Endless Web ➡️ Tarmogoyf Nest

Arasta is really cool and reminds me of the old Heartwood Storyteller or Forgotten Ancient effects, unfortunately it triggers less than I would like. I've replaced it with another token generator, but one that should create more archetype-overlapping creatures. Go-wide meets Dredge in Tarmogoyf Nest.

Chord of Calling ➡️ Eladamri, Korvecdal

I love Augur of Autumn, and I'd rather have less "find-my-toolbox-or-instant-wincon" type stuff. Whatever is on top is general a more brain-teasing way to play.

Primal Command ➡️ Rampant Frogantua
Anara, Wolvid Familiar ➡️ Polygoyf

I'm going to miss Primal Command, but Anara is an incredibly boring design. I've replaced them with most likely "big guys," with some go-wide applications on Polygoyf. Maybe ya'll will finally attack each other?

Multicolor

Izoni, Thousand-Eyed ➡️ Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Izoni is expensive, small, and not particularly explosive. Hogaak might eat those cards, but is recursive itself, huge, and has some considerably iconography in the game's history. Definitely more of a satisfying play than getting six 1/1s and a 2/3 for six mana.

Bonny Pall, Clearcutter ➡️ Louvaq, the Aberrant

I loathe Wizard's designs of Simic over the last decade. Every card draws cards and puts lands into play. All the same, just different costs, types, and power toughness, but at their core the same. The design of Simic in this cube focuses on Hydras and cards like Hydras. , not to be confused with Twitter, is the center of this design, thus "Build-A-Beast." Also, proliferate and incremental counter placement rules!

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash ➡️ Coram, the Undertaker

Boosts from the yard, self-milling, possible recursion for sacrifice targets? I love this card. Yurlok was kinda silly, but didn't do too much beyond incidental group slug. Cut.

Nethroi, Apex of Death ➡️ The Necrobloom

The Necrobloom does it all! Graveyard, tokens! Well, I guess that's all. Cutting Nethroi seems like the right call. The high cost, single use play seconds to Karador, Ghost Chieftain for his repeatable effect. Maybe I should add Teneb, the Harvester?

Fetches ➡️ Filters

These changes were already added. While Fetches are extremely powerful, color identity confused my players. Easy fix: remove them! I replaced them with the cut Filters from MOX 1138: A Vintage Cube.

Also, everybody is bad at shuffling for some reason.

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Changes for Upcoming Sets

Assassin's Creed features a number of cool equipments and a couple fun looking legends.

White
Caduceus, Staff of Hermes

Red
Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos
[[The Spear of Leonida

Notes

This is a quick update to rectify an issue for new players, and correct stressed manabases.

New players (and players who don't generally construct decks in Commander) have brought up a point of contention in the creation of complex manabases. It's not obvious to a new player the legality of Fetch Lands in a deck, as their text boxes and their colors differ than their use as a game piece. Even though they feature a couple of colors on their frames, they lack a color identity, meaning that they can be in decks outside of those colors visually marked on the card. Since this is the case, I've decided to cut them in favor of the Shadowmoor Filter Lands, which also often help players who have stressed high pip mana costs in two or three color decks. There are few ways to actually recur lands out of the graveyard, so it's not a major loss for players, and I am of the opinion that players should have more lands in their decks to meet high mana cost cards. Removing them in a game is a sin.

Plus, I have the Filter Lands in foil and they look rad as hell.

Due to the removal of Fetch Lands, I will likley be taking a stronger push towards methods to compliment the two non-basic lands with basic land type cycles in the cube in future updates. This will likely take the form of cards like Farseek or Spoils of Victory.

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Report

No games played.

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Potential Changes for Upcoming Sets

No changes.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Report

We're finally the featured Cube om CubeCobra! Welcome! This is really fun that we have a platform to do this, and I hope this inspires more people to experiment with multiplayer based cube experiences. Please enjoy, feel free to copy, critique, and revel in good times with your friends.

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Notes

Cut the underperformers in the Jeskai colors for more combat oriented cards which fit the theme more.

Aragorn, King of Gondor is rather silly and incredibly powerful four-drop that brings in the monarch (very Azorius stax-y) and additional evasion (very Boros).

Narset, Enlightened Master fulfills all three with combat (very Boros, again), free non-creature spells (Izzet focused), and Hexproof and First Strike (again, Azorius stax-coded) really create a perfect Jeskai Commander.

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Potential Changes for Upcoming Sets

No changes.

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Watchlist

Heartless Hidetsugu on power level concerns. It's very strong and often just wins games by itself in quick turn succession.

Wicker Picker on lack of power level concerns. I do really want this one to work out, so we'll continue to test.

Report

Four players, Jake wins with Heartless Hidetsugu doing much of the work. General lack of spot removal, some considerable overextension from other players led to being overwhelmed after a well timed sweeper.

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Notes

This is our first draft since CubeSummit™ 2024 Winter, and again the cube was fantastic. The draft environment is varied and interesting, and players have fun. The most important part is that it still emulates those splashy plays that very, very seasoned EDH players remember, except the games don't take several hours.

I've decided to add a few cards from the recent releases to help give tokens other options, specifically in the form of Clues and Food. This should make for more interesting decks and interactions with the existing base.

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Changes for Murders at Karlov Manor and associated set releases:

Illustrious Wanderglyph > Apothecary White
Caves of Chaos Adventurer > Prisoner's Dilemma
Ramunap Excavator > Archdruid's Charm
Daxos of Meletis > Suppressor Skyguard
Shanna, Purifying Blade > Morska, Undersea Sleuth

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Watchlist

None as of yet.

Report

We drafted the cube in paper for the first time! People had fun, they had some questions concerning the "partner" mechanics dictated on the Hasty Coronation card which was doled out to each of them. Players did not have a hard time building decks as the number of commanders was sufficiently dense in the list as well as the added support of the Conspiracy "rules card" listed above.

The game went for a little over two hours, starting at 40 life in a pod of seven players. Decks were mostly varied and all seemed to perform well. Decks were as follows:

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Notes

CubeSummit™ 2024 Winter was a huge success for the new cube. Blue was underrepresented in the draft, and red and white overrepresented, but the colors all played to their strengths in archetypal form, and players did not encounter issues with drafting and then building decks. There was a variety of styles of play, and players for the most part had a fun and interactive game.

We shouldn't do seven person pods, though. That was a mistake. A simple three and four player pod for future seven player drafts will be the decision moving forward.

Also arguments over Rules Lawyer were incredibly funny, so glad I included it.

I've taken the liberty of rearranging the cards which are included in both of my main cubes, cutting several options and syncing a few new ones. In addition, I've removed a number of lifegain cards in white, and Blood Artist for more restrictive cards, specifically Gerrard and Hanna and Crypt Ghast, which both require you to do more active (and generally more expensive) stuff before running away with lifegain.

I've also cut Siege Behemoth in favor of Chatterstorm and Awaken the Woods to fill a more versatile role in ramp and token decks.

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Changes for Murders at Karlov Manor:

None as of yet.

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Watchlist

Lifegain cards.

Report

No reports.

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Notes

Hopefully this will be the last update prior to CubeSummit™ 2024 Winter. This is simply a note that the cube is essentially ready.

I've cut Crypt Ghast due to Extort and how that might confuse my players with color identity. That said, I will be putting it and Nirkana Revenant in for the future once my players are comfortable with the general ideas and constraints of the cube itself.

Of note: Retro-frame cards will be released with Ravnica Remastered which arrives two weeks prior the event. Unsure what retro-frame cards are included in the set, but it's possible that additional cards will be replaced.

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Changes for Murders at Karlov Manor:

? > Crypt Ghast
? > Nirkana Revenant

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Watchlist

Over My Dead Bodies, the card might just be too insane. Sometimes that's a bad thing. Here? We don't know.