Hmm... It seems like I've forgotten to chronicle a couple of drafts here. You'ld think that over half a year per draft on average would be enough time to write something! Regardless, I was super happy I got to finally host a draft again, and it was a riot, even though I saw my own plans of domination completely ruined! Going on a loss streak playing your own cube because you can't focus on just one archetype is a new experience, but I loved it XD

On the other side of the table the decks definitely had a better plan for the long game. Jannes thoroughly deserved the win here, because he was single handedly responsible for the only losses of the rest of the top 4. Previous drafts have had UB Self Discard and Boros Aggro come out on top, but we're returning back to the roots with a slower paced Mardu deck on top again.

1. Jannes (Seat 7, WWW - Mardu Midrange (click for decklist))
2. Sebas (Seat 8, WWL - WB Aggro)
3. Arjan (Seat 3, WLW - bUGr Tempo)
4. Joep (Seat 5, LWW - UB Self Discard)
5. Casper (Seat 4, WLL - Boros Aggro)
6. Kian (Seat 2, LW - 5C Good Stuff)
7. Olwin (Seat 6, LL - RG Ramp)
8. Martijn (Seat 1, LLL - Esper Artifact Aggro Smokestack Discard Matters)

Martijn (Seat 1, Doom Engine (custom, click for image))
Kian (Seat 2, Cloudfin Raptor)
Arjan (Seat 3, Mystic Snake)
Casper (Seat 4, Reinforced Ronin)
Joep (Seat 5, Virtue of Persistence)
Olwin (Seat 6, Wildfire)
Jannes (Seat 7, Feather, the Redeemed)
Sebas (Seat 8, Thalia, Heretic Cathar)

When you're playing every round, you don't see every cool thing that's going on. Luckily excited players like to share their stories, for example when they get to untap with Faith of the Devoted and Psychatog in play, and dump their hand to drain the opponent for a massive amount of health. There was one play I did get to witness that takes the cake though, because it was so incredibly well spotted. It's round two, and the only match still going is Arjan (on bUGr Tempo) versus Olwin (on RG Ramp). Arjan is leading by 1-0, and game 2 is a tight staring competition between The Goose Mother and Tyrant of Kher Ridges. Neither player can really afford to swing in, but Living Twister and Life from the Loam are slowly whittling away Arjan's life. He finally finds more beaters and forces a chump block from the Tyrant. Problem is, he needs one more turn to win, but he's at 6 life and Olwin has the exact amount of mana needed to dredge Loam and pitch three lands to the Living Twister. He starts to go through the motions to tie the game when Arjan stops him and shows a Condescend for X = 1, leaving Olwin exactly one mana short of being able to win. Majestic!

It's been a while since I last updated my cube, let alone play it, but I've got (at least) two drafts coming up, so it was time to do some long overdue cube management.

Maybe the biggest change is the complete removal of double-faced cards. Because I run customs, I've used neat placeholder cards for a long time, but ultimately, DFC's are still finicky to play with, and their effects are pretty replaceable for the most part. There are a few cards, like Legion's Landing and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, that I will miss, but since I run customs, I was able to create some single-faced replacements that operate in a similar space.

The land section actually contained the largest number of DFC's in my cube, since I ran two pathways in each of the five guilds. These have been replaced with a custom cycle of lands, two in each of the five three-color shards in my cube.

I also added back in a couple of planeswalkers (Kaya, Ghost Assassin and Nissa, Steward of Elements) to replace the DFC walkers from Origins.

To make room for a bunch of new stuff, I had to cut something, and despite loving it a lot, I decided to axe the Learn/Lesson mechanic from Strixhaven. Next to DFC's and tokens, it's easily the most finicky mechanic, but I do love it a lot. Who knows, if we ever revisit Arcavia, it might make a glorious return!

Wilds of Eldraine brought Celebration to the color pair, and I honestly love the mechanic! The only problem, in my mind, is that the red celebration cards are a lot more engaging than the white ones, so I created a few white customs to add instead. To help trigger celebration, I also added a number of cards with the For Mirrodin! keyword, which in turn fuels the Historic keyword that was already present in white, but got a nice extra member in red with Gloin, Dwarf Emissary. This subtheme should provide players with some nice sequencing puzzles, and even more of an incentive to pick up cards like Barbed Spike and Hexgold Halberd to trigger celebration with one card. All in all, aggro got a pretty big overhaul. We'll see if it's still the strongest archetype in the next few drafts!

An older keyword that got some extra love is Connive. I had already added a few connive cards to my cube previously, but I found it plays very well with the self-discard theme in , and the little reanimation package in . Plus, it's generally great smoothing, so I added a few more custom designs.

The final keyword that got some presence in my cube, including through some customs, is ravenous. Temur ramp is a cool archetype that can play some nice haymakers, but sometimes gets run over. Together with The Goose Mother, ravenous cards should add some flexibility to the archetype, offering a few options that can be cast both early and late.

Well, I say final, but there's a few extra mechanics and keywords that got some extra love, namely Amass, Adventures, "whenever you draw your second card each turn", Convoke, and white counterspells. In total a whopping 85 cards were replaced in this update, and I'm excited to see where all the new cards will fit in once we get to draft this cube!

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