The Snarls were very Strixhaven, but that's only half the cycle. The Ravnica Bouncelands actually have a number of little synergies here including giving you lands back to Retrace and returning MDFC land spells to your hand for casting.

This cube was played at the Salt Box in Baltimore! One player named Sylvia (the eventual champion of the event) played a deck with both Blood Moon effects, and pointed out that each opponent was able to easily sideboard or change their fetch habits between games to dramatically reduce their value. Also, Moons in constructed were meant to catch opponents by surprise which is harder in a small pod, and there is no Tron or Inkmoth Nexus to punish anyway. Another cut I'll be making is Obstinate Baloth: Black Discard suffers here and doesn't need any additional hosing.

In their place, I want to give a Ponza-like deck a chance with Molten Rain, and Goblin Dark-Dwellers can recur it, or can go in a variety of decks like Nahiri control, Mardu Pyromancer, or Jund. In Baloth's place, Acid-Moss can flesh out a RG Ponza like deck, or get Scapeshift up to the key land number.

In the event, one of the FINALS matches was Death's Shadow/Pyromancer vs a Scapeshift combo deck! This is the most successful I've seen Shadow be, AND the first time I've seen kills with Valakut and it was great to see it work consistently when supported properly (the player was running extra cards to be able to hit the right land numbers mid- and late-game.)

This cube was at Cube For A Cause in Brooklyn, and received lots of nice feedback! Some of the feedback included that Restoration Angel and Spell Queller felt too strong. This is a balance I have to walk when blending old cards with new cards, as new creatures are almost universally stronger. I think Restoration Angel was correctly identified as being too individually powerful, but I think Spell Queller is possibly safe to keep. I want to keep testing it, but I do think that fellow WU card Soulherder is too powerful. If you don't get it off the board right away, it begins accruing value that can quickly overwhelm the opponent before ultimately becoming a win-condition of its own.

To that end, I want to try Silver Drake as a value-generator that pulls back something like Faerie Seer or Thraben Inspector and then can be a threatening flier. And in place of the Angel, I think Solitary Confinement can be an interesting Fair card that makes a combo deck have to wait a few turns to kill you, OR if you can find a way to draw cards outside the draw step (like with Curiosity on Zur for example) you can keep it out indefinitely.

Just to give Cavern of Souls another option to name

Bringing the Arena version up-to-date!

Revisiting this project after drafting Stormtime by @MJGrenier. Cutting out the Splice onto Arcane cards which were likely to be damaging to gameplay, upping the creature density in Red, removing all Enchantments and the one creature which could destroy the Spell Satchel.

A bunch of new Cycling cards! I am confident in many of these swaps to stick, but the following cards are being let in on a TEST basis and are more susceptible to change if they have unintended play patterns: Scrounging Skyray, Marauding Mako, Dredger's Insight, Night Market.

I have long-disliked just how efficient the LTR landcycling creatures are, especially Generous Ent and Troll of Khazad-Dum. I have chosen now, in the midst of other cycling changes, to try a batch of other sets' creatures. I really don't love leaving in Eagles of the North as the only 1-mana cycler, but there isn't another option I like better, it has neutral flavor, and White is the lowest-curving color.

Archetype change

Mill is tricky to balance in Limited. So many cards struggle to be balanced for both 40- and 60-card formats, and these days WotC has an eye to 100-card decks as often as any other size. With all the Cycling cards being brought in, many in UB, I feel it's a good time to try refocusing the archetype's signposts back to Cycling first, mill second. Mill decks are still possible, especially with an early Hedron Crab, but Cycling will be the more consistently achievable and supported deck.

THAT'S RIGHT, GREEN PASSED THE TEST AND IS NOW ROAD-CERTIFIED!

AETHERDRIFT BROUGHT US OVER 100 CARDS, SO WE'VE HAD TO DO A BIT OF RESTRUCTURING! THE CUBE IS NOW 450 CARDS, SINGLETON EXCEPT FOR RARE LANDS, ALL 5 COLORS, AND BACK TO BEING DRAFTED IN 3 PACKS OF 15! IF YOU MISS THE OLD WAY, YOU CAN ALWAYS VISIT

THE NEW ARCHETYPES ARE:
RED-GREEN: RAMP OUT BIG VEHICLES AND ATTACK, THEN BOOST INTO THE LATE GAME WITH EXHAUST

GREEN-WHITE: +1/+1 COUNTERS MAKE YOUR PILOTS BETTER AT CREWING AND YOUR CARS BETTER AT SMASHING!

BLUE-RED: SHIFTING FOCUS FROM ARTIFACTS TO PIRATE DISCARD!

BLACK-GREEN: FILL UP YOUR GRAVEYARD AND PULL THE BEST SALVAGE RIGHT BACK OUT!

RED-WHITE: DWARVES AND EQUIPMENT STILL HAVE A SMALL PRESENCE, BUT TOKENS ARE A NEW OPTION!

GREEN-BLUE: RAMP OUT BIG VEHICLES AND ATTACK, THEN BOOST INTO THE LATE GAME WITH EXH- NO THIS ISN'T THE SAME THING AS GRUUL WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK THAT?

FOR THOSE WORRIED ABOUT THE NUMBER OF VEHICLES DECREASING IN THE SIZE INCREASE, CHECK THIS OUT:
OLD VEHICLE COUNT: 85/360 = 23.6%
NEW VEHICLE COUNT: 115/450 = 25.6%

IT'S QUITE AN EXCITING UPDATE! THE NEXT BIG TEST FOR THE CUBE WILL BE AT BOSTON CUBE PARTY, HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!