The Tabletop Cube will be featured at the Washington Cube Champs in March, and I'm making a few little changes before then. These are mostly quality-of-life cuts, and additions to support archetypes that want a little extra verve.

Finally found a beat to hell Legends copy of Mana Drain being sold for a good price by a local player. You bet your ass I'm slapping that mollusk(?) into the cube.

It's time for Inkwell Leviathan's long-awaited sunset. I adore this card, and have a lot of fond memories with it, but I consistently find it at odds with the types of interaction that I want in my environment. Now, The Tabletop Cube is not a "fair" magic cube. It runs reanimator, cheaty, and a few combos. However, these decks are more of a fun and exciting challenge for drafters to pursue, and this is emphasized by the large creatures in the list being not just "generically powerful" but also exciting for the drafters who would rather run an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in a deck that wins 40% of the time than an Inkwell Leviathan in a deck that wins 60% of the time. Inkwell always wheeled until someone who was dedicated to an unfair deck got their hands on it, which I didn't like. On the other hand, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn has enough of a WOW factor for the folks that draft the Tabletop cube that it is much more likely to be picked up on a whim by a curious or hopeful drafter, even if Inkwell can be run in your reanimate deck, and hit with Tinker, and can't be bounced by Jace or Teferi or T3feri or you name it. This is also why I don't run Triplicate Titan anymore. It was powerful, but it lacked... verve for my drafters. Speaking of Emrakuls, I'm adding Emrakul, the Promised End as a fun and exciting fatty that better fits my design goals. It can be run in a non-"cheaty" deck, it's not a Tinker target, and it's more playable in green ramp than some of the other biggies in the cube.

Frogkin Kidnapper was a fun test, and it did work, but CARDNAME confuses some new drafters and the card doesn't fit the aesthetic standards for my list. Cogwork Librarian is a card that I have run before, but I am adding it back in now that I have limited the number of cheaty-support cards (mainly tutors and discard outlets, and by speeding up the pace of the environment). Cogwork had been slightly problematic in the past for upping the number of cheaty decks, but now it should just be good clean fun.

Dack Fayden was more fun when I ran Moxen. He's still fine, but he's not what I need out of an Izzet gold card anymore. He's under-drafted, and either does nothing or too much. Just like a lot of my pet cards! But Dack isn't a pet card. He gets the axe, and in his stead Confounding Riddle will reign happily. I haven't even cut Supreme Will yet, and from a designer perspective I think I will actually prefer Supreme Will as long as I support reanimator decks, because I actively don't need more support for that archetype.

Force Spike has gone into and out of the cube more times than probably any other card. The Tabletop Cube is currently at a spot where A.) Force Spike effects are usable again, and B.) Tezzeret is low-priority enough that I'm making the swap. Tezzy has also come and gone many times, and I bet he'll make an appearance again the next time I add more artifacts to the cube.

Court Homunculus was fun, and usually a 2/2 when she needed to be, so like Tezzeret she may be back if I add more artifacts in the future. Recruitment Officer may not last long either because I don't like how wordy she is and there are always more one-drops in white to swap for.

Fblthp is just lost. He does that sometimes.

...BUT ONLY BECAUSE I'M ADDING RAVAGES OF WAR (and also run a second copy of Armageddon anyways because MLD is for true Americans and also for you, dear reader)

In other news, 2x Goblin Welder was a fun experiment but was ultimately unnecessary. There has never truly been a "goblin welder deck" in my cube even with two copies floating around - he's more of an additional option for decks that are already in adjacent play patterns. I'm replacing one copy of GobWob with the new and powerful Atraxa, who will free up some of the big artifacts in the draft by being more ETB effective for reanimate/sneak strategies than cards like Wurmcoil Engine and Ancient Stone Idol.

Ensnaring Bridge is an old classic of control. But it's rarely fun. So it's OUT! Gingerbrute is on the opposite end of every metric as a new, fast, cheap, aggressive card.

Scroll rack is an old classic for putting your combos together. But I'm making combos less consistent. And it's rarely fun. So it's OUT! Mishra's bauble fills the 'yard, works well with Emry/Welder/Etc, and will generally see more use.

Wall of Oh, Man!(s) is one of my Cube babies. I love the old thing. But I've cut most of the fun flickering effects, so it's rarely fun. So it's OUT! Sevinne's Reclamation will mostly be for the Lurrus deck as safety for getting back Lurrus and in the W/G Lands decks to get back mean land destruction pieces.

I've been testing Vraan, Executioner Thane in the "throw him in with the other cards and eventually cut something to bring the list back down to size" sort of way. He was the only card from ONE that I immediately knew I wanted for my cube from the day he was spoiled, but I wasn't sure what I'd cut for him. I seriously considered keeping in BOTH Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat and making him the third, but now that I've gone down from 540 to 480 I really don't need a third version of this effect. Zulaport's had his time in the sun, but he won't be missed other than for sentimental reasons.

Other small changes: I have UNBENCHED the KENCH and brought in the Gitrog Monster (not the word soup Thalia version, cute though it may be). My lands-matters deck LOVES the OG frog. He'll be in here for a long time.

Yooooo Lava Spike makes a triumphant return after a long one-or-two year's absence! I want a few more "just for the burny aggro decks" cards that will 100% wheel for those decks AND be a valid include. Purphoros is cute in some decks and used to be really good, but my curves are too low for him now.

This one's a divisive test. I don't like that Loran has more text than I really need her to have, but I do like its ETB and Legendary Human typing. Conversely, I adore Flickerwisp, but... we'll see. It will probably make its creepy little way back into the list in the future, and right now, it's not exactly doing an extreme amount of work. If I ever put back in more of a ETB/flicker/etc. package it will surely see a return, but right now it only gains incidental value from the ETB and is mostly "just" a 3/1 flying beater.