I think the cube is ready for Exhume at uncommon to fill the hole exchanging Bite of the Black Rose for Unnerve at common makes. Again, another "Each player" effect, even if its usually more lopsided. I prefer this over Victimize entirely for that reason, though the BR sacrifice deck may prefer that effect as a nice overlap card.

Forgot about a lot of cards in Strixhaven!

• Technique Cycle: I love all of these, and they're obviously a multiplayer mechanic, so naturally the whole cycle gets in, obviously.
• "Mastery" from STX: Ok, I don't think all of this cycle is as good, though. I feel like the Black member of the cycle is uncommon at best - for it to be a good removal spell, giving a third player the card draw is still fairly rough and the black section of the cube is already mostly removal or sweepers, right? The blue card feels awful a lot of the time, especially since decking oneself out is a legit lose condition. Fervent... isn't made for playing. IT just isn't. Meanwhile, Green and White are pretty awesome actually! Play some politics with the right player and both of them are just great 4 mana cards that on occasion you just play on 6 for them to just do their job anyway!
• Curse of Thirst/Curse of Misfortunes: AKA, lets give a curse deck a wincon! Bitterheart Witch isn't good enough to play, but I think sometimes these will just kill someone. They're fun and I just fancy playing them for a bit.
• Bite of the Black Rose: I am intending to cut Unnerve. Bite is going down to common as it's usually the side of it you don't want it to be. But it still feels better to draft/resolve than Unnerve does. This will leave space for a future black card to be added.
• Rip Apart: A worry of mine is that the more enchantments there are in the cube, the worse not having copious enchantment removal is going to feel, obviously. Artifacts are easier to remove, frankly - there are good cards which have "kill an artifact" as random upside - but enchantments are harder. Rip is just a great card! Losing the politics of "Ride Down my opponent's blocker, now two players can swing in and deal them lethal" sucks, but Rip Apart is just the perfect Boros uncommon a lot of the time. Great utility card to have in the cube.
• Minion's Return: AKA the Unhallowed Pact that DOESN'T COMPLETELY SUCK. This is actually super political once someone realises the black player has access to it, I love this card! Flash is just... just a straight upgrade? Just miles better. Time will tell whether it's strong enough to need to be uncommon, though. Might be too frustrating to play against at common.
• Skyline Despot: Ending on the easy comment here. Despot was only absent because I didn't have a copy. It's a legit way for red to win a game in Conspiracy draft and now it's a legit way here too. Welcome.

It's nice playing paper magic again. That kinda goes without saying but dang it, I enjoy playing paper magic with people again. It's a great motivator to get back to this and other projects.

Biggest choices: Treacherous Terrain and Ancient Excavation, the last Commander allied basic landcyclers in the cube.

• Predatory Advantage: I'll admit! Worried about this one! May finally justify putting more enchantment removal elsewhere, as this could take over some games. But inevitability seems like something I should be adding, and sometimes it just doesn't do anything. But if someone stumbles, there you are.
• Soulquake: I felt that I needed more sweepers and there's not really a Living Death style situation in cube yet, y'know? (The big "Lets pick everything up/massive reanimator" hit). Feels like an effect I want at that mana cost in this cube, but may be too cute.

A lot of the other choices are about interaction or a desire for more multiplayer scaling effects.

• Noble Benefactor: Voting is interactive, but Jays... is kinda bad, frankly. You WILL die to drawing too many cards in this cube. Benefactor makes games SPICY when it's on the board, especially with Araumi RIGHT THERE to abuse it. It's a great way for people to actually get to do things, too.
• Kamahl's Summons: Melee wants a lot of creatures, this makes a lot of creatures. This makes combat happen on the spot, at the cost of information. But it's a nice way to make folks feel less bad too - oh no I'm mana screwed, well here's the 6 creatures in my hand.
• Order of Succession: Ok, personal admission. I was cutting mind control effects during <that whole thing> because they were hard to play. Getting back to paper magic, I'm not the only person saying it's WEIRD to be able to touch other people's cards again. Illusory Gains just keeps heading all over the place, Order only does it twice - once when you gain control, and once when you lose it. Little more comfortable and, frankly, a better effect anyway.
• Deftblade Elite: I wish there were more good Provoke cards! Doomed Traveler should likely come back, but for now I just wanted Provoke! Great in Melee, great for breaking stalemates!
• Bearded Axe: Taking advantage of already having cut one copy, I feel this makes a lot of red's smaller creatures into appreciable threats, and this is important to me. Slipper may turn out to be better than other choices, so may come back at common, but for now I'm trying this out instead.

There's one really easy element here: Fiery Fall is the only Alara block "1M Basic Landcycling" card that really feels good both to play and to cycle. The other four are all generally levels of... eh? 3UU is too much for a counterspell, Lifegain is super weak, 7 mana for a drain is a spell that can end games but feels worse than creatures and other better scaling options, and Gleam is nice as a combat trick but is only here because the new white options in MH2 is equally unimpressive, frankly. So the blue and green options were easy replacements, while I feel like an enchantment that cycles is exactly what we want in black anyway, so that's totally playable too. I feel like the red enchantment doesn't really do enough to cut Fall, and I enjoy that Gleam at least has a chance to be played.

The rest are more sidegrades?

• Call to Heel -> Withdraw: I enjoy these two for one chances. It's really interesting comparing this to Run Away Together. Withdraw sometimes bounces two creatures, but usually bounces them for different opponents. Run Away is less colour intensive but NEVER double bounces for one player, and sometimes requires either a sacrifice or 'Oh no I bounced my Pacified creature' to work. I feel Withdraw at least beats the strange position of paying one extra mana for usually a worse Unsummon.
• Audacious Infiltrator -> Barbed Spike: Not going to lie, I enjoy Infiltrator. I think it's a fun evasive creature that, were this a real reprint set, would totally be in the environment as way to randomly make combat more interesting. But I enjoy extra equipment being added to the environment, and this is a fun design. Stormfront Pegasus that leaves its... horn behind? Love it.
• Fireshrieker -> Batterbone: Again, randomnly extra equipment, but this one suddenly makes a lot things into threats in a way that Shrieker honestly doesn't a lot of the time.

Definitely more interesting cards from the set, especially when you get to the rares, so more changes are likely.

(Still a Modern Horizons 2 update to come! This one's just a lot simpler.)

I intend on removing all the allied colour basic landcycling cards - for Ancient Excavation, it'll be Barrin's Spite I think replacing it, whereas it's less clear for Treacherous Terrain. I actually like it a lot more - it's a clear RG finisher even if it's potentially a bit too strong for draft level play. Having a clear "This is going to deal everyone 8+ if the game goes too long" is more important than some of the other effects anyway and, frankly, it makes more sense for RG of all colour combinations to have additional cycling access. I'm just disliking that, frankly, colourless landcycling makes deck construction a little easy. Think about it - the Onslaught block cyclers only fix for the colour of the card, and the Alara block ones require that you already have a source of that colour. It feels balanced for "Oh the spell side is harder to cast" to also mean that the cycling part is easier, but the effects are also... usually a lot stronger? Four birds doesn't seem too big but white/blue LOVES that effect, it's honestly very strong. Reanimation with haste? Great. Exiling enchantments and artifacts in a format rife with them? Sold. Even "Draw your hand then discard that many" really downplays a lot of the sadness you can sometimes have with a 60 card deck in draft by going "Ok, filter for that perfect hand then fuel Arambi ANYWAY". It's just a bit too good, and it makes the enemy coloured section feel worse. Originally I added the third set of multicoloured uncommons so that allied would get cycling, while enemy would get <more substantial effects>. Now I would prefer "draft indicators x2, powerful card x1". I feel the replacements live up to this! Bruenor is a CLEAR Equipment Deck Lord, while Hurl Through Hell is all about giving Rakdos the removal it loves in this sort of environment - exile a threat, but you draw a copy for the next turn cycle. Even better if you exile a flash threat. ;-) Detention Sphere is a safety valve choice for now - I feel there are better choices but, if tokens are a concern, it's nice to have something that can do something about it. Sythis is the obvious GW enchantress payoff should the cube need it and, if the cube doesn't, it is easily cuttable.

Now, other choices:

• Winds of Rath: Wave doesn't do... much? Versus Winds allows you to set a board up more easily. Another way of clearly indicating "Hey, play enchantments" too.
• Fiendlash: Weird realising I didn't have any equipment at rare in Red and this one is a doozy! Little bit of extra Reach (just realised the card gives that, huh, weird) and won't show up every game but, man, that's a clock when it does. Lavabrink feels at odds with what the cube wants red to do anyway, frankly. Sure there's a high top end for red but too often this feels like "three players between you decide to wipe the board" which could be worse but could be way better.
• Vengeful Ancestor: Sometimes, a card feels like it was just MADE for this cube. 3/4? Dodges a lot of removal honestly. Goad synergy? HOW is this the first proper card to do something with Goad? I know the Impetus cycle is also great for triggers here, but I adore having a "If I goad your whole board it'll hit you too", it's great for a multiplayer environment. Very solid design, and I'm happy to play it! Hero... I'm going to miss it? But I hope Vengeful plays more like the Multiplayer environment wants to.
• Flumph: Instant and obvious choice to include in the cube. Again, obvious multiplayer plant is obvious.
• Clay Golem: Felt weird having a red specific equipment anyway. Sure, it reduces the number of equipment readily available to both W/x and R/x decks - and haste is a good thing to have access to! - but I prefer Clay Golem being great early with a painful Monstrosity ability you need to respect. Dislike d8s immensely, though - dice rolling is my least favourite part of AFR, frankly.
• Blue Dragon: Jetting was THE blue bomb in Conspiracy, really, but Blue Dragon is another "I love this effect" inclusion. Remember, that's FOUR combat phases being affected in a four player game, that's pretty great.
• Dragon Turtle: Blue needs early fat and, sure, it's less of an indicator for artifact synergies, but I feel that this is another "built for multiplayer" card. Remember, pick the only blocker for player 4 and three players will have a chance to smash their face.
• Deadly Dispute: More variance in black effects, and reduction in the removal suite of the cube. Implant... sure it was an enchantment synergy card, but it's also very very weak. It barely avoided being replaced in Strixhaven but now I feel was the time to take it out. Especially given there are other things that might come in that do similar things (Absorb Vis, your days are numbered.)
• Dueling Rapier: Madcap Skills is great, I love the card, but red's problem is that it's ALL burn. This is an actual combat trick for the red deck, it increases the number of equipment for R/x decks, and makes a lot of things decent threats honestly. Sometimes you get the fun of pairing this with Goblinslide for 1R 3/1 flash blockers which is funny.
• Wulfgar of Icewind Dale: Admittedly doesn't synergise as much as you might like but, hey, Melee lord is a BIG deal. Makes a lot of cards a fair bit better, versus Tahngarth is multiplayer politics but also... not very good, frankly? Could be better!

Modern Horizons 2 has a LOT of cards I need to think about too, and will be updated soon, but this was an easier update for me to make. Adventures is a low powered environment, even if the Commander decks with this set launch gave a LOT more things to think about. Knowing from the start that Venture wasn't going to be used while Clay Golem is the only admission that dice rolling exists made the update easy - it was all about choosing cards that also ignored those concepts, helped by most of the other choices not being too good. Horizons is... wow, it's a defining set for a reason. There's creep and seep everywhere, very unique effects that need to be considered. And Innistrad spoilers are coming very soon? A LOT to be excited about in the cube world, for both this and my other three cubes. But this is my project that is the least set in stone currently so it's the one I wanted to update first.

Axebane Guardian made a lot more sense when there was a soft Naya defenders deck getting seeded but whereas Doorkeeper looks good and actually does something weirdly - since blue had more defenders when it was added - Axebane does... much less. The R/G defenders are slowly going, and it doesn't go in the same deck really as the W/U defenders. In addition, there are better ramp cards in the cube. Sure it fixes but currently I don't feel this is a 3+ colour cube, oddly. For these reasons, at the very least temporarily cut. Doorkeeper, I'll admit, probably next.

Throne Warden is the weakest looking 2 drop. Monarch already has enough incentives, honestly, and at least the Orzhov Knights come with their own Monarch trigger. This is out for the same reason that all the voting matters cards are probably finding their own days numbered - can't support every archetype and this is just a 3/3 for 2 usually, right? Shrug Have to cut something.

Originally when I was building this cube, I intended to keep to a common/uncommon/rare breakdown. Now, however, I'm doing a W/U/B/R/G breakdown, which means that the number of cards in each colour is what matters, not the proportions. For that reason, I'm doing the Battlebond thing - some unimpressive but necessary cards get up or downshifted in rarity (who thought that Irresistable Prey for instance was uncommon? There are a few of those in Battlebond.) But because it's colour weighted, I don't mind "Oh no, there are more 'uncommons' in this colour!" for now - I intend to get it back to consistent numbers eventually but for now, this works for me while I try and figure out better replacements. The curve and the proportion of creature to non creature still feels VERY off in this cube, and I need to rectify that eventually.

Some of these just make packs or drafts boring, honestly. Others are a bit weaker than I'd like so I don't want as many. And some are a lot stronger with Myriad and Encore in the format so I've reduced them to the uncommon level of usage.