What I like about Tarkir: Dragonstorm is that it seems to be an intentional step back to Magic design of years past, especially when compared to sets like Aetherdrift or Murders at Karlov Manor. For one, none of the new mechanics seem to be reliant on a critical mass of cards with that mechanic (see: Start your engines), and any card can easily work in a vacuum. The flavor is also very inspired by traditional fantasy and lacks the meta-jokes and in-your-face pop culture references and tropes¹.

That said, the design is not without issues. Visually Omens look a lot like Adventures, but in practicality they play nothing like them. I kept mixing up Endure and Mobilize during the preview season, and white Spirit tokens — especially 1/1s — without flying seem like a bad decision that would lead to a lot of confusion. This has led me to exclude cards not because their play patterns, but out of fear that they would lead to more confusion than it's worth it. There are no Endure cards in this update, and only one Omen card. There are also no Harmonize cards, but that has mostly to do with the individual designs rather than the mechanic as a whole.

The standout cards in this set are almost all white, with Sage of the Skies being my personal favorite. Ancient Tomb into Lotus Petal into Sage of the Skies on T1 is a very real possibility in my cube, and I actually look forward to it. In fact, I like the whole take of "two spells in a turn" in this set, and I even considered cards such as Aligned Heart. Flurry, as it's called now, is a good bridge between White Aggro and Jeskai Spellslinger. I especially like that Sage's trigger is a copy of the spell, and not an enters the battlefield trigger.

Clarion Conqueror and Elspeth, Storm Slayer are the other two white standouts from this set. With Elspeth, now white is the color with the most planeswalkers in the cube, and I've decided to cut Leyline Binding to take away some of the removal available to those decks.

Speaking of planeswalkers, Ugin, Eye of the Storms is another standout. I'm starting to really enjoy these big colorless payoffs, and I hope that one day soon "colorless matters" will receive natural support in the cube, without having to force it through janky includes or Wastes in the basics box.

The reasoning behind the rest of the includes is a bit self-evident. Marang River Regent is the aforementioned singular Omen include, and I feel it's being overlooked by the community at large.² Qarsi Revenant is worth mentioning as it replaces Rankle, Master of Pranks, one of the longest-surviving nonland cards in my cube. Frontline Rush is another example of how the Boros section in cubes has changed in the last five years from one struggling to find inclusions to one struggling to find cuts.

There are also cards that didn't make the cut that I considered. I already mentioned Endure — Sinkhole Surveyor is the one card that makes me reconsider my stance on 1/1 white Spirits without flying. Floral Evoker is a bit too fine-tuned when it comes to the overall package, and Sidisi, Regent of the Mire is an "with mana value equal to or less than X plus 1" short of being an actual playable card. Lastly, Cori-Steel Cutter is the non-inclusion I'm most expecting to see in my cube at some point in the future, but on the other hand, it's been a while I've had an update with just nine changes. I'm happy to say that this time around there are fewer changes, but all of them seem more impactful and interesting than the average new card of previous sets.

---

¹ Stormscale Scion not withstanding, but even then, it's a perfectly fine name outside of the meta-joke.

² Funnily enough it doesn't work with one of the reasons I like Omens — while it's another source of deck shuffling, it draws the cards first, which defeats the purpose of Brainstorming first.

While Aetherdrift is a perfectly fine Magic set, well-designed and with lots of interesting cards, it's just not the set for me. I do wish to stress that it doesn't seem suffer from the same problems as Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Murders at Markov Manor, but the flavor still doesn't resonate with me, and the limited mechanics disinterest me.

What renewed my love for Magic was Innistrad Remastered, which might go down as one of the best limited environments I've played. I loved it so much that I'm planning on making my first ever set cube — namely, Innistrad Remastered Set Cube — with a few tweaks to better suit the needs of a set cube and refine some of the few issues I have with INR.

If it wasn't for Innistrad Remastered, I would hardly have been playing Magic these past few months.

Still, there are some great designs in Aetherdrift, especially ones that bolster the now so-frequent-it's-not-even-incidental discard. I'm talking of course about Marauding Mako and Monument to Endurance, which join the likes of Ivora, Insatiable Heir and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun.

I've also cut the Verge cycle of lands, mostly for real estate reasons, but also because they've proven to be a bit of a mental burden. While great, they are hardly worth the complexity they add to the board and the draft in this cube.

Aetherdrift also adds a lot to the artifact package, with five colorless artifacts, including The Aetherspark itself, which is proving to play a lot like a discount The One Ring, at least according to initial testing results.

Innistrad Remastered inspired me to replace The Huntsman's Redemption with Eldritch Evolution, a much more straightforward and powerful version of the effect. I'm also considered adding Young Wolf, though I decided against it because it doesn't work well with the +1/+1 counters theme green usually ends up playing.

Lastly, the odd card in this update — I am adding Eidolon of Astral Winds. I am well aware it's not near the power level of my other white 3-drops, but it's worth to have a few "live the dream" synergistic cards, and I think even at base rate the Eidolon is a perfectly fine card. The only issue is I don't play enough O-Ring variants in White, but this isn't something that actually bothers me.

Honorable Mentions

• Peema Trailblazer and Territorial Aetherkite are two new energy cards that look interesting; sadly, although I now run a good amount of energy-producing cards, these two don't seem powerful enough to make the cut. I do hope that I am proven wrong, especially about the Aetherkite, but I don't want to add cards just to support a parasitic mechanic and end up misleading my drafters.

• Three other exhaust cards also almost made the cut — Skyserpent Seeker, Loot, the Pathfinder, and Draconautics Engineer. In fact, there's a real chance I add the Engineer with the next update.

• There were also a few mounts — District Mascot and Guardian Sunmare — but the lack of a printing with reminder text for Saddle really soured me on both of them.

• A few of the "Start your engines" cards also piqued my interest, but I decided against them because the mechanic won't work well outside of the context of Aetherdrift limited or constructed formats — Hazoret, Godseeker, Howlsquad Heavy, Perilous Snare, and especially Burnout Bashtronaut, which I think is the only card with that rules text that's reasonable enough to include on its own without a whole package.

I haven't drafted my cube in a while. This update has two goals:

1. The URL of the cube has been changed to versatilevistas (used to be futurevistas). This is because I bought a set of Delver Passes and I figured it is a good time to update the URL to reflect the actual name of the cube.

2. My cube is getting drafted online and this better reflects the current physical state of the cube. The biggest change is the introduction of a package of Energy-matters cards, but otherwise, most of the changes are straightforward and don't need much explanation. This is still not a genuine reflection of my goal for this cube, but I didn't want to change it too drastically, as the people who chose to draft it have chosen it for a reason.

Rest in peace, David Lynch. Go enjoy a slice of cherry pie after finishing the draft, friends!

This was supposed to be a celebratory update, one that discussed in depth the beauty of Magic: Foundations and went into details about each inclusion. Unfortunately, I have to say — to hell with that.

Instead, I want to use this opportunity to highlight this fantastic essay by Sam (also known as Rhystic Studies), entitled "Your Foundation is Rotten".

In addition to that, I highly recommend Tolarian Community College's video " Half Of Magic: The Gathering Will Not Be Magic: The Gathering" on the same topic.

As for myself, today I started the process of taking an inventory of my full collection and putting it up for sale. While I am not a huge whale with tons of RL staples such as ABUR duals, we are still talking about several boxes of sealed product, about 70 fetchlands (20 of which — full playsets of Onslaught allied fetches), old Secret Lairs, and many staples. I still haven't decided which parts of all of that to sell, but that's mostly an issue of inventorization.

I will keep my cube, and I will be updating it at least semi-regularly, but the sad truth is, with the recent announcement that Magic is now 50% generic pop-junk schlock, I came to the realization that Magic is no longer interested in retaining players, only in acquiring new ones.

The unfortunate fact is, most of the Magic players I used to play with no longer play the game. Some have left due to life, but many have left for other TCGs, or just because they became disillusioned with Magic. Many have quit specifically because of Universes Beyond. One particular player — one of my most frequent drafters — dropped out of Magic because they have a public-facing job and did not want to be associated with something that's making news because of death threats within the community.

In a few short years I went from being the person who started playing most recently, to the person who's been playing the longest.

I am not even anti-consumerist or heavily subscribing to the way terminally online people doomsay how everything sucks now, including our pop culture, because of corporations. But I hate Marvel, I have little interest in Final Fantasy, and frankly, I hope that I never even see a SpongeBob Squarepants card in person. Even the "Universe" I love — Tolkien's beautiful legendarium — felt devoid of any soul once I got to hold those cards in my hand for the first time.

Of course, this is just a game, but precisely because it's just a game I am not willing to let myself be hostage to all these negative emotions and the frustration I've been feeling. There are much more important things in life to waste my energy getting angry about than something that's supposed to help me kick back and relax. I prefer to be stressed about real, genuine issues, than be stressed about something that would be ridiculous to classify even as a "first world problem". That said, I do take big insult at being lied to and treated like a fool, and WotC demonstrably treated me and all players like fools several times these past few days.

What this means for the cube

What this means for this cube is that I might no longer be updating it regularly. What it means is that I might be updating it without writing a blog post. What it means is that I might abandon updating it online at all, and instead just swapping cards in real life, with little care to keeping the real cube and the online list in sync.

And if I fail to find anyone to play cube with, I might disassemble and get rid of this cube, too.

That doesn't mean I will stop cubing. I came back from a fantastic Star Wars: Unlimited prerelease event, and that game lends itself to cubing beautifully. Ever since I drafted it for the first time, I've been considering building a cube for it, and the SWU community in my area is currently much more vibrant than the Magic community. Coincidentally it consists mostly of ex-Magic players, of the people I used to play Magic with.

Yeah, it might not be high fantasy, but at the very least it will never be Sponge Bob Square Pants either. And it will never put canonically rapist characters like Negan from Walking Dead within the borders of its card frame.

The changes

• Sun-Blessed Healer is a 3/1 for with an upside that fits my goals.

• Raise the Past is a card that I need to test in order to properly gauge. Like Sun-Blessed, it supports a "small-creatures-reanimator" archetype which I enjoy.

• Phantasmal Shieldback is a wall that replaces itself and works well with Flare of Denial.

• Ivora, Insatiable Heir... it feels pointless to even point out that I have tons of accidental discard in my cube.

• Searslicer Goblin is just a good card, at least on paper. Red aggro has been needing some support for a while now.

• Kellan, Planar Trailblazer is a 2/1 for with an upside, which is a reason enough.

• Scythecat Cub — you know the drill, it's just a Bristly Bill, Spine Sower variant.

• Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate — feels pointless to spell out "it's a good card" yet again.

• Shardless Outlander is a cool land cycler that's far from optimal but can go into any deck that can get to 7 mana (potentially). It (as well as the next card) is a cool way to eventually, in the future, maybe, with many caveats, support Ugin's Labyrinth in my cube.

• Sire of Seven Deaths is what befell my enjoyment of Magic the Gathering.

Until the next product announcement by Wizards of the Coast about products based on products!

7 cards changed

All of these changes have been done just to make the cube more exciting, balance be damned.

Archway of Innovation and Ancient Tomb are both in as a way to enable more top-heavy decks, though in different ways. It probably warrants noting that Archway is no Tolarian Academy, but I have a strict "No Reserved List cards" policy that I haven't considered breaking yet.

Kozilek, the Broken Reality is an exciting payoff for that top-heavy package. At 9 mana, I do not expect him to get cast every draft, but I think the excitement alone is worth the slot. It also replaces Thalia and The Gitrog Monster, which is also a card that doesn't get cast a lot, but is much less exciting.

Grief is just a vanity inclusion of a card that got banned in Modern. For now, it's just an experiment, and if it proves successful, I'll also consider Solitude and Fury.

Green is getting a bit of a make-over with three new additions, mostly to get the color out of the "glue rut" it's currently in. Currently there are not a lot of exciting reasons to draft Green — few of the cards in that color get players thrilled as most of them are glue cards that fit in a wide variety of decks but are otherwise a bit dull. While I am a big fan of cards that fit a wide range of decks, it is important to have a few build-around cards that players are excited to draft and make fun things with. Shifting Woodland, Birthing Ritual and Six are just that. My hope is that all three of them will end up creating seemingly unbalanced but memorable games.

Overall, I came to realize I was too focused on having too many glue cards at the expense of enabling player creativity. Cards that players can sometimes break are, after all, fun, if breaking them requires clever drafting, deck building, or sequencing (best case scenario is when it requires all three).

Notably, most of the cards I am cutting are dull filler cards that offer exactly what they promise, like getting a hamburger at MacDonalds. You'll get exactly what you've ordered, but that doesn't make for an exciting meal. I definitely don't want my cube to feel like you're at a big chain fast food joint, where the mere idea of creativity goes to die. Sometimes ground beef does belong in a trifle, alongside jam and custard.

13 cards changed

...of which 12 are from Duskmourn, and 5 are a land cycle from the set.

This time around I wanna talk about my inclusions by talking about the mechanics of Duskmourn.

With the advent of very complex mechanics in recent year (Cases, Battles, Suspect, Prototype) that are the cause of more rules infractions than gameplay interactions, as well as for narrow ones that work only within their limited environments (Outlaws, Saddle, Valiant), my tolerance for "novel" mechanics has somewhat dried up. Luckily, most of Duskmourn's mechanics are interesting, self-contained, and easy to grasp. I don't really care much about Rooms (and by extent Eerie), but although I am not including any of the Rooms with this update, I can easily see myself playing some of them in the future, if the mechanic shows up again and becomes easily recognizable by the players.

I am, however, a huge fan of Manifest Dread. While Murders at Karlov Manor utterly failed to move face-down creatures design forward, Manifest Dread completely reinvents the concept of face-down creature, and does so elegantly. In fact, this is the first time I feel good about including cards that make face-down creatures in my cube.

I am also very excited about the return of Delirium. I like the natural deck building tension between Manifest Dread and Delirium — one mechanic wants you to fill your graveyard while playing different card types in your deck, while the other makes it easy to fill your graveyard, but wants you to play mostly creatures. Some may find that tension frustrating, but to me it is elegant and ingenious.

I also like Impending, enchantment creature tokens, and the "Enduring" cycle as concepts, but out of those three, there's only a single individual design that I like enough to test — Overlord of the Hauntwoods, which seems like an absolute beast of a card as it checks so many boxes — Delirium (having two card types), big stompy, ramp, and lands.

As for Delirium and Manifest Dread, there are two cards with each mechanic.

Abhorrent Oculus looks like a good Murktide Regent imitation with a much interesting upside than "it's just big". I didn't cut Murktide for it (I cut Vendilion Clique instead), but I can imagine cutting the dragon later as Abhorrent Oculus plays in the same space without many of the issues with that card — you can't play it for just , or without a graveyard; it doesn't dodge removal such as Fatal Push and Long Goodbye, and it is much more realistic to kill it with burn damage.

Curator Beastie is another card that grabbed my attention. Like Oculus, I like that it supports multiple archetypes without explicitly saying so. At 6 mana, it is a ramp target for sure, but in addition to that it has niche synergies with artifact decks, pumping all colorless creatures, and not just the 2/2 Manifested ones it produces. The card is unassuming enough — in fact, it wasn't until I started writing this blog post that I decided to do one final skim of the set, which is when I noticed the Beastie. But I believe it is a much more interesting and much easier to understand card than Gruff Triplets, which I'm cutting.

Notably, even though I am including only two cards that Manifest Dread, they do so repeatedly. The same is true for Hauntwoods Shrieker — a card that almost made the cut, and might still make it in the future.

Fear of Missing Out is a card with the potential to make Inti, Seneschal of the Sun obsolete. Not that it is more powerful than Inti, but it does pretty much the same thing as Inti, without resulting in this huge accumulation of decisions which often snowballs into pointless decision paralysis. It's a one-and-done deal, but it still offers a great payoff for discarding the right card.

As for Wildfire Wickerfolk, I don't think there's a need to explain its inclusion. The card does the same as Brushfire Elemental, but better.

Other than that, I've also included:

• Nowhere to Run — fun little removal piece that makes dealing with the likes of Kappa Cannoneer and Patchwork Automaton that much easier.

• Insidious Fungus — Cankerbloom was fun, but the Proliferate mode was almost never used, as there's rarely a scenario where putting a bunch of counters on stuff that already has counters is worth the 3 mana and a card cost. Fungus offers a much more enticing third mode that may actually be the most on-rate one.

• The Verge cycle of lands (Floodfarm Verge, Gloomlake Verge, etc.) — I like fixing, and these are almost all upside over a basic land. I don't think they are nearly as good as the other fixing lands in my cube, but until the Horizons cycle is completed, these will do nicely. Also, worth noting that we're now at a point where there are enough good fixing land cycles that at 360, cube curators will need to decide which ones to include based on the needs of the environment rather than just the power level of those lands.

• Urza's Bauble — I've been waiting for a reprint with updated rules text (and non-hideous art) for ages. It finally happened.

In conclusion, I am really happy with the few inclusions from Duskmourn, and I can see myself including even more cards in the future, if they prove their worth.

I'm also happy that the set does justice to its horror inspirations.

Also, Duskmourn is a stupid name that isn't fitting for the plane. I hate this recent trend of new planes being called "adjective + noun". Thunder Junction, Bloomburrow, Duskmourn — what happened to evocative, original names like Alara, Mercadia and Ulgrotha?

Duskmourn... what a stupid name.

42 cards changed

I haven't drafted my cube, at all, for the last several months.

This is due to many reasons, but one of the main ones is my new obsession — the new Star Wars TCG called Star Wars Unlimited. To my surprise, the game FFG came up with is not just decent, but actively great and deeply engaging. I used to be a huge Star Wars fan but nowadays, being tied up to Star Wars is something that works against me. Star Wars unlimited not only overcame this, but rekindled my love for the universe George Lucas created.

More importantly to our topic at hand, it's great to play a game where the deep strategic complexity comes from the system itself rather than the rules text on cards. Since there are only two sets released as of yet, most of the cards are incredibly simple in their rules text. I forgot what it felt to be excited for a card that reads just "Deal 2 damage to any target", without anything else on it.

I feel that going forward, this will also reflect the decisions I make about my cube. I plan to one day create a Star Wars Unlimited cube (the draft system for the game lends itself beautifully to creating a cube), but since we're still just two sets in, it is too early to do so. Until then, expect me to include more "bread and butter" cards in Versatile Vistas. I've always been a proponent of less words in rules text, but playing SWU highlighted how unnecessarily complicated even many of the cards I previously thought as "ok" actually are. Just look at something like Earthshaker Khenra or Defiler of Vigor.

But enough about Star Wars.

Modern Horizons 3, Assassin's Creed and Bloomburrow

Three sets have come out since my last update (it's actually 5, if we count the commander releases as separate sets). Star Wars Unlimited plans on releasing 3 sets per year... here, 3 sets means literally just over a month (Modern Horizons 3 released on July 14).

Since every set seems to be providing at least several new potential cards to toy with, it's becoming harder and harder to find cuts in my cube to make way for the new inclusions. Thus I'm becoming more and more hesitant to actually test out new cards. This is yet another reason I'm becoming more conscious of complexity equity.

However, this update brings more changes to my cube than just cutting wordy cards and replacing them with less wordy ones — this is not everything that's happening with this update.

Gone are the Triomes. While I like good fixing, the Triomes, in combination with the 20 fetchlands I'm running, complicated the draft portion of cube night. I don't mind the fetching for fixing and shuffling decks, but I certainly disliked that a T1 fetchland in no way communicated the colors your opponent will have access to. This, of course, is also true with shocklands and surveilands too, but to a much lesser extent. You are rarely picking an off-color shockland just to have access to one of the colors it provides by fetching for it. With Triomes in the cube, you can frequently see players picking an early Ketria Triome (for example), then drafting Jeskai, and then picking a Verdant Catacombs late just to have access to the Jeskai colors.

In their place, I'm introducing the painlands. They fit my philosophy of "fixing is good, if the price of it is accelerating the game for your opponent". In other words, I like it when fixing costs you life.

While I usually prefer Horizons because the lack of confusion — tapping the land for mana always costs you life — Modern Horizons 3 introduced some new Colorless mana matters cards I'm willing to test out. I will be the first to admit that the majority of these new cards will likely end up being cut from the cube down the line, though I am quite hopeful for two of them — Thief of Existence and Glaring Fleshraker. It That Heralds the End helps complete the "new additions to artifact aggro" package present in this update.

And since I've already started talking about Modern Horizons 3 inclusions...

Modern Horizons 3

As a whole, Modern Horizons brought a lot of new toys that fit a wide range of archetypes, but looking at my list of additions now, I don't think any of those reach the level of exciting and irreplaceable staples cards like Urza, Lord High Artificer and Esper Sentinel from previous Modern Horizons sets are, maybe with the sole exception of Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury.

This is only natural, as Modern Horizons 3 seems to have taken a different design approach, with a much more on-the-rails limited environment where synergy is to be studied and not discovered. To put it differently, Modern Horizons 1 and Modern Horizons 2 look like sets that can be drafted together and still have interesting games. I don't believe one can combine MH3 with either of those two sets (or with both of them) as successfully.

That doesn't mean I'm testing only a few cards from the set. I already mentioned Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury, which is making waves across constructed formats, most prominently modern, but bread-and-butter cards like Flare of Denial, Marionette Apprentice and Accursed Marauder are also very exciting. Planar Genesis seems to be overlooked by the community at large, and Ghostfire Slice is one of the standout additions from this set — not only does it punish decks that are greedy on colors, but it's also a great counter to cards like Mother of Runes.

Lastly, I want to highlight Pyrogoyf specifically, as it is not part of the main MH3 set but from the commander decks. This is a great update on Flametongue Kavu, which I've never been a huge fan of, bringing it up to 2024 standards without making it a straight-up power creep.

Assassin's Creed

It's Tax Collector. Nothing else interests me, and the only reason this card makes the cut is because its art doesn't scream "I'M AN ASSASSIN'S CREED CARD". While the effect is good, I hope it soon gets reprinted with in-universe flavor, and I can see myself cutting it out of irritation if it doesn't get an Universes Within printing.

Bloomburrow

I'm not testing many cards from Bloomburrow, but this doesn't mean that I don't like the set. On the contrary, so far this seems like a great limited environment, and I love everything about it, from the mechanics and flavor to the execution.

I love that classes are back. While it adds token complexity creep, I also love Offspring. The typal themes of the set may not be a great fit for my cube, but they have been executed spectacularly within the limited environment, allowing for a creature-type-based strategies without putting your draft on rails. I'm a bit partial to the "enters the battlefield" shortening to "enters", but I believe it won't be too confusing for newer players. And Valiant is the improved version of Heroic that I didn't know I needed in my life..

I don't even think it's a "pity" that not enough cards would be a good fit for my cube. The set is designed holistically, and the end result is great, and that's what matters.

Fell is probably the standout card from the set — a 2-mana murder with no condition, no downside (other than being a sorcery), no restrictive casting cost. There's not much to say about a card as straightforward as this one — in fact, I feel the decision which card to cut for it might be a more interesting topic of discussion, as I've chosen to keep Feed the Swarm just because it can also hit enchantments.

Black gets a few more toys, and probably the one that's most unpopular among the cube community as a whole is Thought-Stalker Warlock. I hope this card proves to be better than it looks, but I actually expect it will end up on the cutting floor sooner than later.

I won't go over the other additions, but many of them are obvious. Innkeeper's Talent is just a green variation on Luminarch Aspirant that can't be removed easily. Stormchaser's Talent is better than Elusive Otter in almost every aspect. Iridescent Vinelasher can easily hit your opponent for four damage when played on turn four, thanks to the cheap offspring cost and the abundance of fetchlands in my environment.

I can actually see myself including more cards from Bloomburrow in the future. I wondered about adding Whiskervale Forerunner, but ultimately decided against it after comparing it to Hero of Bladehold — while Bladehold does have to survive a turn, it doesn't need an additional card in order to trigger, and it can't fail to find a target. The two 1/1s are also very comparable to a free 3-drop, especially since they attack as 2/1s. Pollywog Prodigy is another card I expect a lot of people to test, but the scenario where it actually nets you more than a single card is very unlikely in a cube such as mine — not only do you need to grow it, but also you need to face an opponent who's playing enough cheap noncreature spells. Hearthborn Battler is just on the verge of being interesting enough for me, but it's still just a 2/3 that really needed to be a 3/3 in order to fit the power level of my environment. Or at least I think so — I'd be happy to be proven wrong in the future.

After all, while it was obvious to me that Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury would be a staple for my cube and multiple formats, many people misjudged the card and complained it didn't cost just for "just a sorcery-speed Helix Wave that potentially draws you a card".

The Future

I'm somewhat excited about Magic Foundations. I hope to see not only many new designs, but also reprints of cards that haven't seen reprint in a while. Maybe we finally get Miscalculation that says Instant rather than Interrupt?

That's it. I don't have any grand closing thoughts to end on. Now, if you excuse me, I'm off to tinker with my Cad Bane/Tarkintown deck for the next Star Wars Unlimited tournament.

My cube is being drafted on April 20th by the MTG Cube discord community. Since this is an online draft, I will use the opportunity to test two cards from Modern Horizons 3.

These changes are not present in paper.

It seems that with the previous update I cut the wrong card for Find // Finality (one that was being cut twice with the update), so Find // Finality wasn't originally added to the update.

This fixes that.

31 Cards changed

I will keep this write-up short, as this isn't really a true update, meaning I am not yet getting physical copies of all of these cards and putting them in my cube.

Given that Moder Horizons 3 is a few months out and that I have already liked one of the few cards revealed enough to consider putting it in my cube, I'm postponing all substantial changes to my cube until that set comes out. Thus, this is more of a bookkeeping update, the goal of which is to make it easier for me to evaluate cards from MH3 going forward, rather than to reflect what I would actually be tested.

Think of it this way — this is what my cube would've looked like right now if Modern Horizons 3 wasn't just around the corner.

Still, there are several things I do want to mention and several cards that I do want to discuss.

The first thing is that although I call this the "Murders at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction" update, that's really not the case. Both MKM and OTJ came with supplemental sets that were smaller in size but offered much more interesting designs that suit the goals of my cube better. For Karlov Manor, the non-standard legal Clue tie-in was a surprise hit not only for me but for cubers in general, with great hybrid designs that seem to allow for interesting decks in multiple color combinations. For Thunder Junction, that was the Big Score set that was initially designed as an Aftermath-like product but quickly merged into the main set boosters after the utter failure of MAT. Murders at Karlov Manor is still better represented than its tie-in Clue (5 MKM cards, excluding the lands, versus 3 CLU cards, although I would love to test more CLU cards in the future), but BIG actually beats out OTJ, with 6 BIG cards versus 5 OTJ cards in this update. That's nearly 19% of the whole BIG (ignoring its reprints), and like CLU, I hope to find the time and slots to test even more designs from BIG in the future.

Murders at Karlov Manor also introduced a cycle of 10 new lands with dual land types that I love. Being able to fetch those with fetch lands is a reason enough to include them in my cube. I think the Surveil is underrated by many people who make the mistake of looking at them as slightly better Temples. Shock lands these are not, but if I am running a couple of Shocks in my colors, I'd much prefer to have a Surveil land that I can fetch on a dead turn (such as Turn 1) rather than a third Shock in those same colors. I don't expect these to turn out to be anything less than staples in my cube.

In terms of individual cards, I want to specifically call out several cards, most of which from OTJ and BIG.

Long Goodbye gets an honorable mention as a strict upgrade over Eliminate. I know many people are actively not running Long Goodbye precisely because it is a strictly better card for seemingly "no good reason" but as I've discussed before, I like my removal to be effective against smaller and cheaper creatures as opposed to the late-game threats, and I don't mind increasing the power level of Eliminate. Also, I am too much of a fan of the 1973 Robert Altman movie of the same name based on the Raymond Chandler novel this card seems to be referencing, with a stunning young Elliott Gould playing detective Philip Marlowe. So when it comes to this card — it's okay with me.

While hybrids were the most exciting part about CLU in general, when it comes to individual designs, Unruly Krasis is the card that stands out. Putting that much power on a 3-drop without making it boring is difficult to pull off, but I think Wizards succeeded in this case.

Forsaken Miner may prove to be the best recursive black 1-drop after Bloodsoaked Champion, and I don't know what else to say about this card.

Harvester of Misery looks very similar to Virtue of Persistence — once again, anything that kills small creatures while sparing more expensive ones fits my design goals well.

Between Aftermath Analyst, Bristlebud Farmer, Bristly Bill, Spine Sower, Sandstorm Salvager and Scuttling Sentinel, Green gets a lot of new toys to expand its Lands Matter and +1/+1 Counters archetypes. Those are all generically good cards (well, maybe with the exception of Afermath Analyst), and I'm particularly excited about Bristlebud Farmer as green 4-drop creatures are actually kind of a weak slot, especially if you exclude cards like Thrun, the Last Troll or Ulvenwald Oddity (I don't run cards with Regeneration or Double-faced cards in my cube).

5 cards changed

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is proving to be even more powerful than I initially thought, and might prove to be one of the most represented sets in my cube in the long run. A week after its prerelease, three cards have piqued my interest, with one of them replacing an LCI inclusion, and the other two being pretty straightforward cuts too.

Jadelight Spelunker is the addition I want to highlight — initially I was really low on the card, but having played it at prerelease and seeing it perform on streams, I am happy to admit I was completely wrong about the card. What I failed to perceive was that at high enough mana values, it's not only a big body creature that fills the graveyard and draws you some lands, but it also kinda casts Vampiric Tutor for free. It's a very versatile card, which fully fits the spirit of this cube. I'm cutting Cenote Scout for it, as I was very mid on the card to begin with, and it fills a similar role anyway.

I'm still not fully sold on Spyglass Siren, but it's a 1/1 flying creature that generates an artifact, so at the very least it's one of the better flying man variants. Given that Mausoleum Wanderer is also a flying man variant with a niche taxing counterspell and additional trinket text, this seems like a sensible cut.

On the other hand, Tishana's Tidebinder I'm quite wary about — it can come down and counter a Fetchland trigger, acting like a Stone Rain with flash and a 3/2 body to boot. But it is pushing Blue in a different direction than "Xerox/Prowess", which is something I'm actively trying to do. Come to think of it, this set has been fantastic for Blue tempo — between Tidebinder, Spyglass Siren, and Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel, which I've already included, as well as some other options I've elected not to include (Kitesail Larcenist, Subterranean Schooner).

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Also of note, I'm cutting both Delver of Secrets and Khenra Spellspear, the last double-faced cards that were part of the short-lived DFC experiment in my cube. As I said, Prowess had a few toys too much, and a single copy of Delver always felt very hit or miss — not precisely the gameplay I value highly. As for Khenra Spellspear, it's proven rather lackluster. The fact it only flips as a sorcery really hurts the card as it's so easy to respond to the trigger with a random Shock or Disfigure variant.

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In addition to these three changes, I'm also including:

• Virtue of Courage — this was an overlook on my part, as I've been sold on the card since it was revealed during the Wilds of Eldraine spoiler season.
• Vindicate is in — it's simple, straightforward, still very good on rate, and rather elegant. I'm also not against the spell being used for land destruction, although if that proves too problematic for my environment, I'll probably switch to Legions to Ashes or Anguished Unmaking. Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff proved to be very lackluster, not to mention I hate the Universes Beyond frame (the moment any of the UB cards in my cube get a Universes Within printing, I'm switching to that).

15 Cards Changed

Recently I changed the way I evaluate potential inclusions for my cube, setting the bar much higher than before. My goal is to test fewer new cards per set, and focus only on the ones that fit my specific criteria and have a good chance of staying in my cube longer.

I did not expect for Ixalan to be so full of cards that fit those criteria.

Although I'm testing 15 cards from Ixalan (14 from the main set and 1 from the commander deck) — on par with the average for previous sets — if it wasn't for my change in approach, I would probably be testing 20+ cards, maybe even close to 30. The Lost Caverns of Ixalan is surprisingly chockful of simple, elegant, yet powerful and versatile designs, and many of the swaps are essentially one-to-one replacements.

First, here are the one-to-one replacements in question:

• Get Lost is a premium removal spell and the best Fateful Absence/Soul Partition variant yet. While I dislike nested mechanics (mechanics which refer to other mechanics in their reminder text), the fact Maps come with the reminder text for Explore on them alleviates my issues with the mechanic. On top of that, I do like that Maps are a largely irrelevant downside if your opponent has no creatures on the battlefield. As I'm also cutting March of Otherworldly Light with this update, it's nice to have a replacement that's capable of hitting Urza's Saga.

• Stalactite Stalker's descend ability should be easy to trigger in my cube — between the 20 fetches, Prismatic Vista, Mishra's Bauble and Lotus Petal, it's not unlikely that people will be frequently swinging a 2/2 menace on Turn 2. The activated ability which acts as removal is a great added bonus that will come up often enough not to be irrelevant, but not too often. It replaces Gravecrawler, as the number of Zombies in my cube has gone down drastically.

• Deep-Cavern Bat is an almost strictly better version of Kitesail Freebooter, but I decided to cut Dreams of Steel and Oil instead — I like having 2-drop creatures with targeted hand hate more than 1-mana niche Thoughtseize downgrade.

• Goblin Tomb Raider is an interesting aggressive red 1-drop — I certainly value the fact that it can enter the battlefield as a surprise haste threat over the +1 toughness of Inventor's Apprentice. While the card may seem narrow at a first glance, there are enough artifacts just floating around randomly for this to be online often enough. I do hope that the tension between sacrificing your Clue or Treasure token, and keeping it around a turn longer so that you can push more damage through, plays out as well as it reads on paper. Still, I am not yet fully sold on the card — I expect it to perform better in more synergistic environments such as ones supporting Equipment aggro, which I don't. It replaces yet another mediocre red 1-drop with too much rules text (Embereth Veteran).

• Inti, Seneschal of the Sun is a pretty straightforward replacement for Feldon, Ronom Excavator. Nothing much else to add here.

• There have been many discussions about Broadside Bombardiers around various cube communities, so I'll try not to repeat the obvious. There are two things I want to mention — the first being that although I severely dislike Boast as a mechanic (it is pretty hard to parse for what it actually does), this card is interesting and powerful enough for me to overlook that fact. The second is my wish to point out the minor synergy this card has with Urborg Scavengers — giving them both haste and menace is something to look out for. It replaces the rather similar Professional Face-Breaker.

With those out of the way, here are my thoughts on some of the other inclusions:

• Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel needs little introduction — 2/1 flier with flash that loots. Simple as. It joins the ranks of Faerie Mastermind, Mercurial Spelldancer and Ledger Shredder as an evasive blue tempo 2-drop that fits multiple archetypes. Also of note, it replaces Thing in the Ice — the Izzet/Jeskai Prowess deck was dominating my cube and doesn't need a 0/4 defender creature that flips in both a soft Wrath effect and a late-game bomb. Hopefully, providing blue with something else to do than just cast cantrips.

• Black is the biggest winner of Lost Caverns of Ixalan, with a powerful removal spell as the third inclusion from this set — Bitter Triumph is everything I wish Infernal Grasp was. Although the option to pick between 3 life and discarding a card is powerful, I still feel both of these options are significantly worse than just asking for a payment of 2 life — it's 50% more expensive! The reason why I don't run Infernal Grasph is precisely because 2 life is too small of a cost for dealing with the "baneslayers" in my cube such as Murktide Regent and Elder Gargaroth. I'm cutting Sedgemoor Witch here for the same reason I cut Thing in the Ice.

• I'm not as thrilled for Cenote Scout as other members of the community, but I still recognize that it may prove to be a substantially powerful card.

• On the other hand, I don't need to be sold on Sentinel of the Nameless City — everything said about this card is right, it's a beefed-up stats tank, and I don't really need to repeat what others have said.

• Molten Collapse is a tentative testing good removal spell that might play out like Dreadbore too often for my taste. Frankly, there aren't many targets in my cube for its second mode, but I expect it to show up in powered cubes.

• Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon doesn't need to attack for the ability to trigger. Anim Pakal attacks as a 3/4 with two 1/1s by its side on Turn 4. Anim Pakal boosts Artifact Aggro strategies. Anim Pakal is not what I hoped for, but it's still the best Boros card that's not utterly broken we've had in a long while.

• Roaming Throne is a humans.dec card that can still do some interesting stuff if you name Elves, Wizards or Beasts. It's also just a really good colorless 4 drop, 4/4 with Ward is a good body.

• Echoing Deeps is a very tentative test, but I do like the fact it can enter as an untapped land when you need it to, or that it can copy a land from the opponent's graveyard.

• Lastly, now that they've all been spoiled, I like all of the restless lands, but I'm testing only Restless Vents for now, as Menace and Looting puts its play patterns in a much more interesting perspective. I'm becoming a big proponent of creature lands in cube, as a way to provide end-game that's not irrelevant in a low-curving environment (seriously, all 5 of the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms creature lands have been fantastic), so I might end up running a full 10-card cycle of a mix between the OG Zendikar and the current Restless creature lands. The only thing I wish for is that Restless Anchorage had the reminder text for Maps on it, but alas, Celestial Colonnade is still a good inclusion.

Lastly, there are a couple of cards outside of this set that I'm including with this update — Prismatic Ending and Bonesplitter, which have previously been in my cube, are back.