Finally opened some new packs with MH2 prerelease which means an update.

I was never super stoked about Corridor Monitor blocking all the X/1s without trading. Parcel Myr fills in as an artifact creature that's less defensive with an ability that is more often relevant.

Young Pyromancer forgoes the multiplayer shenanigans of Tempt With Immortality but is also graveyard hate and comes with a body. Since they're both sorcery speed this feels nearly strictly better.

Akoum Hellhound is fine but is practically vanilla. Dragon's Rage Channeler is card selection and a graveyard enabler. It is similar to Hellhound in that it is sometimes small and sometimes larger.

Thraben Watcher is basically just better than Griffin Protector, and probably in top 3 best 4 drops l with Kaervek and Ravenous Chupacabra. In listening to Mark Rosewater's podcast I've become interested in the idea that cards in a format don't have to be of equal value. Card evaluation or threat assessment skills are better tested if a player has to decide which of their opponent's creatures is a better target for removal. If creatures of the CMC are all equally valuable,l it doesn't matter which creature you remove, but having unequally powerful creatures means the choice is non-trivial.

When I did the previous update I knew there was another card I wanted to switch out. Realized today it was Applied Biomancy for the same reasons I took out Brazen Borrower - I don't want bounce effects to hit opponent's creatures because I want to avoid the awkwardness in the rules about card ownership. Now I get to add Frilled Mystic, which I've been wanting to add because it's another creature, it's interactive, and it's instant speed. The only reason I hadn't added was not having room in the gold section.

Another small update. I decided to remove "return target creature to it's owner's hand" effects from the list which includes Brazen Borrower and Barrin, Tolarian Archmage. My reasoning for this is technically the owner is whoever brought the deck to the game which can be interpreted in two ways: either it's always me since it's my deck, or it's both players since we are sharing a library. The first case is pretty unfair but then the second case leaves it up in the air. Can I Unsummon a creature my opponent controls to my hand if we're both the owner?

A important design principle for this list has been clean and intuitive rulings. I dont want to spend time wondering how a card works in this format.

One sided bounce effects like Alley Evasion fit fine here because a player would never consider bouncing a creature they control into their opponent's hand. Similarly Watcher for Tomorrow is getting added to the list. This card bounces an exiled card to it's owners hand but again a player would never consider bouncing the exiled card to their opponent's hand so it works as intended and does so intuitively.

To keep the amount of instant speed interaction up without dipping low on creature count Threnody Singer is being added.

Quick update:
I'm not too concerned about Smuggler's Copter having been banned in Pioneer as an indication of power. I think it's balanced enough (though definitely good) and was banned for how it was homogenizing decks. Reasons I prefer it here over Rogue's Gloves include enabling the graveyard, offering card selection over card draw, being an attack trigger instead of a damage trigger incentivizes attacking more (you wouldn't attack with Rogue's Gloves unless it was already a profitable attack anyway), and it makes 1 power creatures relevant later in the game.

I finally cracked my ZNR prerelease kit which means updates.

Both Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and Razor Hippogriff are underwhleming but I just haven't had any cards in my collection that are better fits for this list until now. Both Angelheart Protector and Canyon Jerboa are well-costed and encourage combat. I especially like having landfall in the list because, as mentioned previously on the blog, the tough thing about having high CMC cards is including enough of them to make players feel like playing 6+ lands is worth it. Landfall gives a payoff for playing lands without making a top heavy curve.

Carrion Grub is rarely going to be worth the 4 mana, so I'm replacing it with Nimana Skydancer which also fills the graveyard a bit on ETB and is a Flash creature which is nice because I'm always looking for more instant-speed interaction.

Feed the Swarm gives the player more control than Pharika's Libation and is cheaper. The only down side is being sorcery speed.

Snarespinner doesn't bring much interest to the table. Instead we'll have Kazandu Stomper which is the kind of 6 CMC creature I've been trying to find: a big beater that doesn't just die to removal. I really like the optional returning lands to hand which will allow players access to spells they played face down as a land earlier in the game.

Broken Wings and Thornado are very similar, but I prefer the artifact and enchantment removal modes over cycling since there are enchantment- and artifact- creatures in the list. This is a modal spell with just a bit more flexibility.

Mogis's Warhound is almost strictly worse than Leafcrown Dryad so it gets replaced with Akoum Hellhound which is a good early game attacker. 2 power on turn two is rare in this environment and Hellohound is attacks more safely than Gnarled Scarhide due to 3 toughness on landfall, but since it only has 3 toughness on your turn it not going to stall the board.

I prefer to not have too much repeatable card draw and I was really hankering for a 6 power creature in the list, so Keeper of Fables gets switched for Challenger Troll.

Brazen Borrower is a very good card by my evaluation, but in no way would I say it is overpowered. It replaces Unsubstantiate to up the creature count of the list.

Unnatural Aggression is nearly strictly worse than Primal Might. Warbriar Blessing is another fight spell but being a permanent makes it at least not strictly worse than Primal Might, though being sorcery speed makes it less desireable than Unnatrual Aggression. Upping the enchantment count is a nice bonus.

Blinding Fog is basically the same as Root Snare but with a bit more functionality. It is very similar to Starlit Mantle but I think different enough to be included.

Sunmane Pegasus was padding the mana curve but otherwise is underwhelming. I like adding ways to encourage aggression and most of the ways in the list do so by giving a pay off for attacking, like Keeper of Fables did. Glory Bearers does so by making attacking safer and also ups the enchantment count.

Real quick, why am I so interested in having a density of enchantments and artifacts? If I want to include any enchantments or artifacts, that means I have to include removal for these. In order for those removal spells to be relevant more often there need to be enough enchantments or artifacts around. Some ways of smoothing this include modal spells like Return to Nature which also hits the graveyard, creatures that remove enchantments and artifacts like Reclamation Sage, and using artifact- and enchantment-creatures that get killed by artifact/enchantment removal and creature removal.

On a similar note, in order to include high CMC cards like Dragon Mage, players need to make land drops late in the game and they won't do this unless they expect cards at high CMCs. In the list there are only 6 cards with CMC 6 or greater. Some ways of smoothing this include Kickers and X costs which encourage late game land drops or ramp and reanimation. I try to make use of Kickers and X costs already due to their modality. One of the core tenets of the Mini Cube/Battlebox format is mana parity so ramp is at a minimum, but I think this list could enable reanimator strategies. The tricky note there is including reanimation targets whose payoffs are worth the hassle but are also reasonably answerable, having enough ways to get them into the graveyard, having enough reanimation spells, enough graveyard hate, and all of these have to have some degree of flexibility.

While I like the idea of repeatedly scrying with Sigiled Skink, it just won't attack often enough having only 1 toughness. In it's place is a card I'm really excited about, Heartfire Immolator. I play Prowess in Modern and am always happy to see more of it, especially on a 2/2 body with a nice removal ability.

I'm putting Glint-Horn Buccaneer in place of Merchant of the Vale to encourage more deck-churning with a lower rummage cost and to encourage more aggro by putting the rummage ability on a better body and letting it only trigger when attacking.

I was never super excited about Poison-Tip Archer, and I've been wanting to add more artifacts so I'm putting in Opaline Unicorn. Since it ramps, I'm taking out Golden Hind as well. I do like that the Unicorn ramps a turn later as well. In Golden Hind's place goes Elvish Visionary. Not super stoked about this card, but I don't own any other good 2cmc options for green. I have some prerelease kits from Ikoria and Zendikar Rising that I'll eventually open and hopefully find something better in this slot and the green 1cmc slot. Side note: very much looking forward to all the Mutate and Cycling from Ikoria and all the Kicker cards from Zendikar. I'm sure a bunch will find their way into this list.

Escape Velocity is nice and arguably better than Crystal Slipper, but again, I'm trying to up the artifact count and that means I need include more colored artifacts. Crystal Slipper has the advantage of being able to re-equip as well. I had been going back and forth on this for a long time and figured it was time to pull the trigger.

Since I'm upping the artifact count in this update, that means for historic spells for Teshar and lets me take some pressure off including Legendary creatures. Massacre Girl being a board wipe that can potentially leave the caster ahead with an evasive creature seems higher power than I'd like for this list, so I'm putting in Toxic Deluge instead. Toxic Deluge is certainly still a powerful card but the life loss I think is a lot more fair. With Massacre Girl out, I think Ravenous Chupacabra may be the best card in the list now as one of the only unconditional removal spells with a body attached.

Zephyr Charge doesn't offer anything that Wings of Hubris didn't already provide at a better rate. So I'm putting in Corridor Monitor again to up artifact count. With all the recent aggro updates, I don't mind adding a 1/4, but it might have to come out given the high number of X/1s.