• Dictate of Heliod: I was skeptical when this went in and it lasted over a decade. Sometimes cube is like that! This was never an all-star, but it held its own as a low-tier playable that could steal games.

• Elspeth: This still serves as an anthem and a win condition, while also providing a little more juice for token-focused decks (and a little more reason for me to lean towards token creation in card choices as well).

• Qarsi Revenant: Trying this out over Nighthawk Scavenger. The hawk has a higher ceiling in play, but this has a (slightly) higher floor and the added value is a lot more than nothing. I'm interested to see how it plays.

• Professional Face-Breaker: This consistently overperformed my expectations, and I'm much sadder to see it go than I would have expected when I first put it in as a slot-filler.

• Tersa: This hits a few different axes I like: it's strong, it's got ETB synergy (albeit mitigated by the legendary typeline), it's got graveyard synergy, and it has a cool effect we haven't seen before.

• Piggy Bank: This was fine but never amazing. My favorite thing about it was the copycat synergy, but it's not such a big reward that even that was terribly exciting.

• Sunset Strikemaster: I'm really intrigued by the concept of a straight-up red mana dork, and the fact that it's also an acceptable beater makes for a really compelling package.

• Warden of the Grove: This goes kinda hard. Once it gets more than one counter on it you're really starting to pop off with spirit tokens or giant beaters, and even at a baseline it has solid stats.

• Maelstrom Wanderer: This is always, always fun to cast. But the power level has been slowly moving further and further away from playable for reasons other than affection, and it stands up particularly poorly in a world where other high-drops are subsidized by cheat options.

• Roar of Endless Song: This is a lot of stats. It's just a couple vanilla guys but those guys just have soooo many stats. And so do your other guys when the time comes!

• Raffine: Seldom played, never exciting.

• Kotis: Kind of an interesting sideways approach to a Meren kind of situation. Stronger while it's around but more limited in scope. I hope this can find a home in the occasional value reanimator strategy.

These are all changes that had been made to the official list ages ago, but were pending online due to commander cards not being available.

• Basri: I like that a lot of the rate in this isn't in being spectacular at attacking but giving you stuff to do when it's not being spectacular at attacking.

• Adanto Vanguard: Cutting this after a long time in the spotlight not because it's not good enough—it absolutely still holds its own—but because it's so dead focused on aggro'ing the opponent out. Historically I've been harsher on that in red than in white, but with a bunch of good white options popping up and several more interestingly-synergistic Adanto-likes still in the cube, I think it's time.

• Sundial: One legendary white vanilla comes out, another goes in. This might actually be a bit under rate at this point, but I want to give it a try for now. Surely there will be plenty more white twos to try swapping in in the future.

• Phelia: This was fun! Too strong, though. The Horizons curse.

• Gloryheath Lynx: This is an interesting one. It's defensively impressive, but it demands you tap down low to start getting card advantage. I'm curious if it holds up.

• Perilous Snare: It's possible that being an artifact in and of itself is more of a liability than the bonus ability is a benefit, but I'm still interested in trying this.

• Jacob Hauken: I like this guy, I really do. But I want to lean the blue two-drop section a little bit away from looting/cheats and towards something a bit more aggressive. Hauken's play pattern is also a bit all-or-nothing: if you flip him you probably win, and if you don't he's barely doing anything since he's exiling stuff anyway.

• Diversion Unit: Love an aggressive disruptive creature in blue. Needing to leave up a mana does mean this gives you shields-down moments, but I'm hoping it'll still find a place.

• Quag Feast: Smother, eat your heart out. This is always going to be somewhat constrained in which creatures it can hit, but dealing with major problem planeswalkers and having mill synergies is a very tempting exchange.

• Norin: Didn't see much play, although admittedly we didn't fire a lot of drafts between then and now. Having to repay the full cost of the creature is pretty brutal, even when rebuying ETBs.

• Greasewrench Goblin: Mana sinks are always less useful in cube than they seem, but the opportunity cost on this is so low and the value of discards on demand can be so high that I still think this is quite strong.

• Hedron Archive: This is a lot less appealing now that Worn Powerstone is in modern.

• The Aetherspark: What an odd card. I'll have to play with it to really udnerstand it but I do appreciate that it's simultaneously more resilient and more fragile than a normal planeswalker. Can't wait to Stoneforge for it.

• Edric: It hurts to say goodbye after all these years, but Edric has become very seldom played even as I've tried to push blue evasive decks. The reality is that his tiny body doesn't make up for how long it takes to get cards even when he works.

• Sab-Sunen: Kind of a weird pseudo-saga thing going on here, but I'm willing to see where it goes. I like that it comes down, blocks, then draws you cards to get out of whatever hole you were in once you have mana to use them.

• Jasper: Cutting this because people are frustrated that it's too good. It has some of that Agent of Treachery "repeated theft" misery to it, and it's particularly good against colors that are trying to go over other decks without having much removal.

• Gev: I think this is a hair on the weak side, and I don't love that it calls out Lizards when that's not remotely a theme of the cube, but the stats are appealing.

• One Last Job: This wasn't quite good enough to be a motivation to go more white for reanimator, so I'm cutting it with the option to swap back in something more compelling later.

• Valkyrie's Call: This is a bit situational on its face as a five-mana enchantment that doesn't do anything without creatures, but the fact that it can serve as part of the Anafenza combo while being harder to disrupt pushes it into being worth trying.

• Fblthp: Card's stinky.

• Kiora: Champion of Wits take two. Champ was always a hair shy of good, and I'm not sure how well the threshold ability stacks up against eternalize, but with +1/+1 as well this is at least worth trying.

• Hauntwoods Shrieker: This is a pretty solid beater, but not hitting ETBs is kind of rough as a cheats outlet and the rest of it seems a bit redundant.

• Spinner of Souls: Continuing the theme of overcurve green creatures with upside. Controlling when your stuff dies is notoriously difficult, but this does make it easier to justify attacking.

• Myr Battlesphere: This has been overmatched for ages as far as high-end ramp/cheats targets go. I liked it for being colorless and so fitting into the "castable and cheatable" slot for every deck, but now that that slot's competitive this old-timer can't hold its own.

• Sire of Seven Deaths: They made a colorless Akroma, and thanks to Ward I don't even have to deal with Protection. It's conceivable that not having haste will make this not quite good enough, but it's certainly tempting enough to try.

• Piggy Bank: I'm not sure this has the juice, but the players are excited for it so I'm giving it a shot.

• Unwanted Remake: This is no Path to Exile, but it's very general-purpose, and it fills a similar role to Condemn in being a lot better in decks that aren't attacking.

• Enduring Innocence: It's always such a relief to kill than Vampire, so having it survive seems very strong. The body is worse here, but that's not necessarily a bad thing—low-to-the-ground decks maybe shouldn't get such a good blocker with such a big upside.

• Consider: There are plenty of ways to get stuff into the graveyard now, so the surveil on this isn't as crucial as it once was.

• Enter the Enigma: I think this is interesting as a cantrip to support the concept of unblockable synergy in blue, and Headliner Scarlett has proven that blocking control is very powerful. We'll see if it's good enough.

• Witness Protection: Sad to lose "Legitimate Businessperson".

• Emrakul's Messenger: Not awful, not great.

• Silent Hallcreeper: This seems strong, wowee. Excited to have some more good food for blue unblockables

• Stoice Sphinx: This wasn't bad when it showed up, but it wasn't showing up frequently and it wasn't good enough to push the metagame in any particular way.

• Mulldrifter: This card is definitely not bad, but its rate is beginning to show its age and even in decks that can recur stuff it's rarely the best thing to do. With a much better option for doing largely the same thing now available, it's time to say farewell, old soldier.

• Overlord of the Floodpits: Largely the same thing as Mulldrifter but better. Obviously casting this is substantially worse when you cast it on 3 (unless you want to discard something), but getting a creature out of it later on is a huge boon.

• Enduring Curiosity: An unblockable reward and an evasive beater that's annoying to get rid of for good? Sign me up!

• Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber: This isn't obviously better than Arena, but the flexibility to do something useful with it when you draw it at low life is quite nice, and I do like this effect to be it's more splashable.

• Archon of Cruelty: Get dehorizonized ya big galoot

• Norin, Swift Survivalist: I'm curious how well people can end up using this ability.

• Augur of Autumn: This is getting outclassed to some degree, and more than that it's just not an angle that really needs help in green right now.

• Hauntwoods Shrieker: This seems really strong. It's good in beats and it's great in cheats. Not making a guy when it enters is a risk, but it's a risk that's viable for a three-drop.

• Chained to the Rocks: I do like how this card plays a lot, but with creature removal getting better in general it's less and less interesting. Better to have fun stuff in the multicolor slots.

• The Jolly Balloon Man: This having haste is a big game when you've got something to clone with it.

• Copperline Gorge: Keeping this in over Thornspire Verge because having access to turn one G is so important to green decks.

• Drowned Catacomb: Keeping this in over Gloomlake Verge because UB cares more about having more reliable color access in the long game than being able to play on curve.

• Phantasmal Bear: To my eternal dismay this still hasn't been performing. It has two major strikes against it. First, it's not evasive, so it doesn't mesh with that angle of synergy in the x/U aggro decks. Second, it can't hold equipment, so it's not even particularly useful with other cards that go well with evasive creatures.

• Mockingbird: In for Phantasmal Bear. An at-cost clone isn't generally great, even with upside, but the thing that puts this over the top is the ability to just cast it as a 1/1 flier on turn 1.

• Plan the Heist: I think when I read this the first time I assumed that the surveil happened when you had no lands untapped, not when you have no cards in hand. It's a LOT harder to hit this way, which makes the card pretty bad.

• Kitnap: The really cool thing about this is that if you don't give the gift, it still takes the creature out of commission if the aura gets removed. Is that relevant enough? Let's find out! If this is bad, it should probably just go back to being a draw spell.

• Thief of Sanity: Removing because I'm recategorizing Connnive // Concoct as UB proper rather than hybrid, so it needs to compete for a proper UB slot. I'm cutting this rather than C//C despite this having a somewhat more interesting effect because I want the multicolor section to point at least somewhat to what the color pair is doing, and reani is a big part of the UB identity.

• Season of Weaving: The flexibility on this is really impressive, and the fact that it's specifically helpful for whatever combination of card or board advantage you need puts it over the top.

• Virtue of Persistence: Virtue is pretty much dead air. The lifegain on this is more relevant, but not relevant enough.

• Sheoldred: This was fine, sometimes threatening, but ultimately just a replacement-level five-drop.

• Maha: Love a good flampler. I'm curious how relevant the toughness clause will end up being.

• Dire Fleet Daredevil: Out for something that's not just sideboard fodder.

• Emberheart Challenger: Heroic was historically really bad in cube, but caring about abilities MIGHT change the equation. The fact that this is a decent body on its own helps as well, of course.

• Lotus Cobra: Lotus Cobra is cool, no doubt, but the fetch-heavy builds it incentivizes are already extremely good on their own merits and it's pretty conditional a lot of the time.

• Pawpatch Recruit: I'm not sure how good the triggered ability is here, but a Savannah Lions doesn't need that much juice to be good, and being able to cast this on 3 for extra value might already be enough.

• Cenote Scout: So this is a split card 1-mana 1/1 draw a card or 1-mana 2/2 scry 1? That actually seems kind of sick.

• Tender Wildguide: The fact that this is a split card Rampant Growth/Explosive Vegetation is very tasty. The rest of the upside I'm expecting to be generally less important, although it doesn't seem too hard to get this to a 4/4 and start bashing.

• Rhonas: I really liked this guy, and I think he's still solid, but he's only good in decks that are both aggressive enough to not really care about blocking AND beefy enough to trigger him semi-regularly, and that's too narrow to continue justifying a slot.

• Innkeeper's Talent: In for Farseek. This is essentially a pure buff, but the ward makes it very compelling and Level 3 of course goes crazy with planeswalkers.

• Chaos Defiler: Seems like a pretty sick value reani engine, not to mention just an out and out good card. "Choose" as a workaround for "target" sucks on its own, but the addition of "at random" which means absolutely nothing in 1v1 really puts this over the edge. I'm a bit heartbroken about this cut, since I was waiting so long to be able to use this on MTGO in the first place, but I think it must be done.

• The Infamous Cruelclaw: If nothing else this seems really fun to activate.

• Banishing Light: Out because I'm fed up with the "choose" workaround for targeting.

• Invert Polarity: I don't think anyone has even cast this yet, but Quetzy already hates it and all else being equal when I have two cards I'm considering for a slot I'd rather cut the horizons card.

• Bria: Mini Narset, or too slow to matter? It'll be interesting to see.

• Slimefoot and Squee: No one's been playing this anyway, but I'm going to cut it for a non-reani 3c card that looks interesting.

• Glarb: Every ablity here seems pretty relevant for decks that can cast this reliably.

• Discovery//Dispersal: Surveil has become frequent enough that this is no longer exciting.

• Deadly Dispute: This isn't super synergistic as it stands, but it's a very soft slot and maybe someone will find a way to use it.

• Freestrider Lookout: Just too hard to get crimes going in green.

BAM update

• Spellbook Vendor: This was totally adequate and the scry was definitely nice, but it's just not very interesting.

• Phelia: Interested in this as something that can help contribute to ETB/blink strategies.

• Windbrisk Heights: Sad to see this go after so long, but it's by far the least interesting and least synergistic cheats card in a cube that's got a lot of that going on.

• Malcolm: Cutting this not because it's bad but because blue's just too dense with two-mana looters.

• Emrakul's Messenger: Not sure how good this'll be, but it's definitely interesting.

• Rotting Regisaur: This is in an awkward position where the body isn't GREAT in decks that can make good use of the discard and the discard is really painful in decks that want a big body. It definitely has games where it shines, but it's also a bit of a trap for newer drafters, so I think its time has expired.

• Etched Slith: Bringing the curve down a bit in black. I'm not sure if this is quite fast enough to be good, and I think it depends on how relevant the second half of its trigger is.

• Fell the Profane: In the spirit of Dehorizonization, I'm trying to avoid doing pure power-level upgrades from MH3. I'm making an exception for this, despite being such a direct upgrade over Hagra Mauling, for a few reasons. First, I do want a bit more density of planeswalker removal. Second, one-for-one answers is a very safe place to put power. And third, I'm thrilled to get rid of the useless extra text on Mauling.

• Victimize: Although this is a pretty clear upgrade over Blood for Bones, the creatures entering tapped also makes it less "shields up" giving opposing decks a potentially better chance of winning out despite a big reanimation play.

• Malevolent Rumble: If nothing else, I hope this will be easier to reason about than Invasion.

• Bala Ged Recovery: This was totally solid, I just want to swap it out for something that's a bit more on-board and a bit less samey.

• Rip Apart: Totally fine, just boring.

• Phlage: Red is one of the best colors at filling up the graveyard and has among the least competition for using it, so it'll be interesting to see how this plays. I'm hoping it helps encourage some Big Boros decks.

• Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance: Too slow, too fragile, too heavily committed to one specific color pair.

• Invert Polarity: Wacky! But possibly strong. Let's find out!

• Saheeli, Sublime Artificer: Just not making it into decks these days, in large part because it's SO hard to protect her the turn she comes down.

• Tamiyo: I'm a little worried that this is TOO good, but I really like it as something cheap and evasive that can hold equipment or drop in a ninja.

• Shrine of Loyal Legions: I fucking love this card. I'm pretty sure it's literally been in since the beginning of the cube, and it breaks my heart to remove it. And it's not even getting cut for power! The problem is that it pushes too hard towards mono-white, and white 2s are getting too tight to hold onto it any longer. I'll always love you, Shrine.

• Dust Animus: A 2/3 flier for 2 is already a good rate (some say "better than any other white 2-drop" although I'm skeptical of that), and the late-game juice is just icing on the cake. In this case I actually like that the plot makes it better on blocks, since I want to give white a bit more reason to pump the brakes sometimes.

• Gideon Jura: There ain't no party like a Gideon party cuz a Gideon party is mandatory. Sadly, the mandatory parties are rarely thrown any more, and this guy spends his days twiddling his thumb in sideboards. You can just get more bang for your buck out of five mana in 2024.

• Chart a Course: This card was shockingly solid. Being able to choose when it was cheap Divination versus a discard outlet was very good. May well put it back in later.

• Jace: Trying this out over Chart a Course. Seems really hard to evaluate. Not having anything but the ult give card advantage is rough for sure, but it's weird enough to be worth testing.

• Zephyr Singer: This kinda sucked. The problem is, once you have creatures that are big enough for flying counters to matter, you kinda don't want to be tapping them to cast this.

• Fblthp: I'm not terribly optimistic about this. Part of what makes Future Sight so good is that it can dig you through lands, which this absolutely cannot. But this is a weak slot and I'm open to being surprised.

• Sower of Temptation: Sower has had its time in the sun, but it's just so disruptable that it doesn't hold its own much these days.

• Stoic Sphinx: This is kind of just a whatever guy, but being largely immune to sorceries and a four-turn clock isn't nothing, and blue's 4s don't set a high bar.

• Three Steps Ahead: So flexible! I think this is mostly going to be a counterspell with kickers, only occasionally played with only the other modes, but it's hard to predict. The core value is that it's flexible while still having every option decently costed.

• Invasion of Vryn: This was totally decent, but never outstanding. It depended on a deck being decent at getting in damage but also having fairly impactful individual spells, which was a bit of a goldilocks situation, but not enough that this saw no play.

• Plan the Hiest: I feel like there's probably a really killer 4-mana blue draw spell they'll print soon that this isn't, but until that happens I'm interested in seeing how this plays. Plot on a draw spell is kind of cool because casting a draw spell when you only have four lands isn't especially useful anyway, so plotting this is pure gravy early on.

• Tinybones: I have been trying for years to get a one-mana 1/1 deathtouch to get played in this cube because I think it's a legitimately decent defensive option. Maybe this will finally be the upside it needs to catch on.

• Kalitas: This guy's SUCH a solid sideboard role-player it breaks my heart a bit to cut him, but the slot is getting tighter and so needs must.

• Hostile Investigator: A four-mana three-for-one with continued upside? JEEZ.

• Doom Whisperer: This was a classic 24th card. Everyone's pretty positive about it but also cuts it in the end. An easy slot to try something new.

• Gisa: It's hard to theorycraft exactly how easy this will be to trigger, but if it's reasonably reliable it seems pretty bonkers. Ward overperforms and this goes very wide very fast.

• Generous Plunderer: In for Magda. Although giving your opponent a treasure is a very real downside, I think the upside of how much better this is at being an aggressive creature is worth it.

• Decadent Dragon: This was okay, but nothing to write home about. Given that it took up (part of) a multicolor slot, it didn't earn its keep.

• Stingerback Terror: Flample is strong, and in a low-curve deck this could be very scary indeed. My biggest concern is that it's too narrowly pointed towards aggro, but I'm okay with giving it a shot and finding out.

• Freestrider Lookout: Kind of a bellwether for how achievable criminality is in Moddy. Being green certainly hinders that, so it'll be interesting to see how this does.

• Loamcrafter Fawn: This was too conditional. Only hitting permanents and requiring lands in hand was just too much to ask.

• Ornery Tumblewagg: Green siege veteran with better upside. Enough said.

• Nissa: I always kinda hated that this card said "basic forest". This has never been bad, but she's been sitting in sideboards more and more and she's not load-bearing in any particular direction.

• Sandstorm Salvager: The green Blade Splicer! The upside here is definitely not as good as first strike most of the time, but it does set some deckbuilding gears turning.

• Champion of Rhonas: There are a lot of new and different ways to cheat cards in these days, so I'm taking out one of the more boring ways to keep the density down a bit.

• Bristlebud Farmer: Iwamori of the Open Fist used to be playable in this cube.

• Smuggler's Surprise: I think this is notably worse at doing pure cheats than See the Unwritten, but I'm interested to see if the added flexibility is worth it. It's especially interesting in its ability to easily enable reani while also being a backup strat for stuff caught in hand.

• Tasigur: This has finally hit the inflection point where its efficiency no longer counterbalances the fact that mana sinks aren't great in cube, especially since delve is a lot less free in black than it once was.

• Lost Jitte: Umezawa's this ain't, but given its low cost it still seems solid, especially as a reward for the evasive deck I'm trying to make happen.

• Xira: Jund rarely aggro enough for this, and even when it is the rate isn't really there.

• Slimefoot and Squee: I'm a bit concerned this'll be too repetitive, but the fact that removing the saproling once basically kills it is probably enough.

• Cabaretti Confluence: The core issue with this, I think, is that it's the wrong colors. Naya decks just can't quite take advantage of the cloning as well as blue or black would be able to, and that makes the whole thing just too conditional.

• Jasper Flint: I'm skeptical of how good this guy is, but I suppose he's worth a shot.

• Bonny Pall: This is a good hunk of stats for six mana, and the slot is pretty soft.

• Urborg Reposession: I think people underplayed this card, but I'd still rather put in something that excites people.

• Honest Rutstein: A three-mana gravedigger isn't that exciting, but it's cool to have something efficient in this color pair beyond pure removal.