• Righteous Confluence was a solid sideboard card that really hosed red decks if you were able to get to 5 mana, as you could go up 15 life on the spot. The most frequent use of the spell otherwise was to create 3 2/2 knights with vigilance, and that was often underwhelming even for the tokens decks. Sage of the Skies is a lot more interesting of a card that in the right matchup people will be fine with casting early just to get an evasive lifelinker on the board, and in others will be held until players can double spell to get maximum value out of. Excited to see this one in action, very clean design.
• Oltec Matterweaver was a worse Monastery Mentor, which sounds pretty good still. However, having two 3 drops that essentially play the same role in a tokens deck where one is worse isn't super great cube design. Voice of Victory seems to be a powerful alternative to Grand Abolisher that is easier to cast and has the ability to make tokens (which also get sacrificed for the aristocrats-leaning decks).

I had a few other cards I was considering for the cube (like Qarsi Revenant and Tersa Lightshatter) but ultimately ended up only changing two cards. There is a continued consideration of adding more red cards that care about discarding, as a lot of payoffs Wizards has printed recently in that archetype are powerful and interesting and the Red section of this cube already has a lot of incidental discard.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with where the cube is now. Until next time!

I got a box of Innistrad Remastered for my birthday, and I opened a lot of cards that I want to play with so, here's some art changes and some card swaps with the goal of boosting the powerlevels of control and tokens.

• Treasure Cruise is a powerful card, but only in formats where you are filling your graveyard for very low investment quickly. This cube doesn't have fetchlands, and while it does have a ton of early cantrips to string together, Cruise saw very little play compared to the other graveyard payoff Murktide Regent. For this reason, I am trying Memory Deluge instead because it gets value twice, helps dig further for tools to control the board at instant speed, and I opened this old border foil. Cruise may come back in if/when I choose to bring in fetchlands.

• Alright look, I opened an old border foil Spider Spawning and I love this card. The issue is, as a long-time Golgari fanboy, I didn't want to get rid of any of the GB cards. And I know that people say that off-color flashback spells are not two color but I want to encourage new players to think that way at least until they get comfortable splashing. Spider Spawning is an awesome build around for GB but its also a reasonable card to play in GX tokens, which needs more tools AND often has been seen playing Lingering Souls. This change further emphasizes the potential for Abzan tokens to unseasoned drafters, and to be honest I'm gonna force Spider Spawning if given the opportunity in Pack 1 and that's going to bring me joy.

• Green has a lot of tools to deal with artifacts and enchantments in this cube. At 3 MV, it had 2 creatures with Thrashing Brontodon and Reclamation Sage. Sage was a fine card to play and blink, but only being a 2/1 never did it many favors, and honestly I think the brontodon working with the GB shell is much more interesting (and he survives a lot of red removal). Scute Swarm is coming in to boost the options in Green for GW tokens. Its a good card, and it also opens up a cool lane for landfall payoffs in Gx decks with Tireless Tracker.

• Sungold Sentinel is a fine 3/2 for 2 MV that has tiny gravehate and some weird flavor text about coven. Cathar Commando has flash, the same amount of power, and is also artifact/enchantment removal--something that White currently lacks. I like bringing this in for UW control decks and honestly its a great 2 drop roleplayer in any Wx deck.

Other than that, some art upgrades. I will be purchasing an old border foil Liliana of the Veil soon and a Join the Dance at the very least. Those won't get a blog post but I'm looking forward to next time around Aetherdrift release!

• Force of Will is a clean safety valve for a lot of the more degenerate things going on in the cube: discarding and reanimating a Griselbrand on T3, curving into Embercleave, etc. It can also be used to protect degenerate blue cards, which should be fine. I think blue can benefit from this effect and its an iconic and powerful card that will encourage people to get into blue. Sublime Epiphany was pretty cool, but at 6 MV and compared to Cryptic Command and Mystic Confluence it didn't really see much play.

• Pyrokinesis is a tough one. Right away with this cube I recognized the danger Fury posed to heavy creature-based aggressive strategies especially when paired with some of the reanimation available in this cube. It not being a creature helps. Red is already in a very good spot in the cube and while I worry that the addition of Pyrokinesis will further hamper GW tokens, I think it is more safe for the current environment than Fury. If it proves to be to problematic I will switch it out for either Flare of Duplication or Mine Collapse.

• Malevolent Rumble is a card whose existence I just discovered and other than being a sorcery, it seems to be all around better than Grapple with the Past. They have been swapped.

I have been wanting to give blue and red free spells for awhile now but was debating what the picks should be. While I am not sure either of these new additions will stay in the cube, I do want to test them and see if they are too powerful in their respective colors.

I am concerned with the power level of green being too low. While I think Green has good tools available to it, it does lack many payoffs or enablers for GW tokens specifically compared to its other archetypal cards. I am considering several powerful options to bring in to see if they can help boost the overall playability of Green and GW tokens.

I have gotten to play cube 3 times in the last month! That's triple last year already, so I am thrilled. Games in the cube have been feeling good recently with the exception of a few games of GW but I'm confident I can bring that playability up.

Until next time!

• Twining Twins was a cool card to try out in place of momentary blink because many decks were okay with a 4/4 flier with keywords in blue and the UWx blink decks liked another instant speed flicker effect--but it didn't see a ton of play either way. Kykar, Zephyr Awakener is clearly more of a UW specific card, but offers either the control deck or the blink deck multiple avenues of value in token generation or blink all on a 3/4 flier. Very excited to play with this one more in the cube.

• Kogla and Yidaro are a flexible pair that gives artifact/enchantment removal, creature removal, and a beater at a flexible cost, but saw little to no play unless the drafter was already in RG. Inspired by seeing it played in Canadian Highlander, I have decided to give Mawloc a try. It's much easier to cast, and offers early to late game flexibility and removal (sometimes card draw too).

• Ashiok, Dream Render was a tough cut to make but the other options are personal favorites. Ashiok saw some amount of play in reanimator decks and the occasional control list, but ultimately was relegated to the sideboard for gravehate. Psychic Frog is an absolute beast of a card that I looked over from MH3. Discard outlet, growing threat, and source of card draw all in one tiny frog--plus the borderless art is sick. This little guy gives me some powerlevel concerns after seeing him in action but I think this cube can handle it.

• As soon as I saw Kellan, Planar Trailblazer, I knew he had to make it into my cube. A one mana red 2/1 doing a modern-day Figure of Destiny impression is an offer I cannot refuse. Unfortunately, Fervent Champion was tonight's biggest loser even though I really liked forcing an equipment package into Rx decks and curving into Inti, Seneschal of the Sun. Maybe one day he will return.

• Eternal Witness received new art because its Secret Lair printing was confusing people who pick cards without reading text as it looked too similar to Wall of Omens Secret Lair art.

I sold a lot of cards at PAX Unplugged this year to buy some new showcase/bling treatments of cards for cube and am very excited to be on the way to blinging out the entire thing. That's a long-term goal though. I'm definitely looking forward to Innistrad Remastered for that gorgeous old border foil Liliana of the Veil and Snapcaster Mage (among other surprises, I'm sure).

I was also very lucky to play two rounds of this cube this December after a good year and a half without it. Even though my epic Sultai control pile went 0-2, I did win 2 games out of the matches and all the games were exciting. Hopefully my playgroup will actually draft more this year.

Until next time!

Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate is exactly what Rakdos wants to be doing in this cube. Sorry, Theater of Horrors but this is the new Rakdos 3-drop to beat!

Other than that, some art changes for now! I’ll be back in a month (post-finals) to see where we’re at with other cards.

BOO! I have some spooky upgrades for the cube from Duskmourn, a set whose limited environment I think is pretty darn cool.

• Radha's Firebrand was a cool 2 drop that turned off blockers and had an overcosted pump effect that occasionally was activated. Fear of Missing Out is a 2/3 for 2 in red, loots, and then if we hit delirium (which ideally you do in RB) gives extra combats. Sweet card, excited to try it.

• Rampaging Raptor is budget Questing Beast in red. You know it, I know it. It was a fine 4 drop among the bunch, but Piggy Bank is a 3/2 for 2 in red, that is two card types for delirium decks, and ramps you on death. Plus its a Boar.

• Sin Prodder was a personal favorite of mine, but here comes Screaming Nemesis with the steel chair! Screaming Nemesis is a 3/3 for 3 with haste in red for one R pip. It also is a Boros Reckoner. It also disables lifegain. This is a wild 3 drop that I think every deck will be interested in picking, unlike ol' prodder.

• Llanowar Visionary was a fine card, but it felt a bit awkward among the other 3's in green. Tireless Tracker doesn't provide mana, but is a growing threat that brings consistent card draw. Tracker is a cube staple and basically I just finally decided to throw him in here.

Cube is in a good spot, I've even been able to play it a few times in the last couple months! Looking forward to trying these changes soon.

Small Change

• Lifecreed Duo was an attempt at improving the survivability of Soul's Attendant while also giving evasion to see if it would get played in the UW fliers decks. Guide of Souls is way more akin to what I'm looking for. It's a 1 drop, it has 2 toughness to survive Orcish Bowmasters (and works with Bowmasters pretty well also). Granting a power boost to another creature and flying is great. My original reasoning for not including Guide was that it made energy, but honestly its the only card in the cube that does at the moment and I'm willing to have one-off mechanics if the quality of the card is high enough. Guide of Souls meets that criterion.

Bloomburrow is here and I like funny little critters.

• Steel Hellkite is a sweet colorless card, but it saw nearly no play. 6 mana is a big ask, even for a decent colorless creature, but you know what is a better colorless creature? Wurmcoil Engine! With some really awesome new art, Wurmcoil may be a smidge on the strong side but I’d rather have a colorless card people will fight over than one that is relegated to sideboards. It’s on the watchlist for now, though.
• Soul’s Attendant is a card with a bit of a weird place in the cube. It is a solid card against the R-based aggro decks and good in GW tokens, but didn’t see a lot of play. Its also competing with some heavy hitters in the one-drop slot for W decks and most importantly I want to put it into a commander deck instead of it being here. Lifecreed Duo has two toughness and flies, which lets it hold equipment and finds a more interesting home in the UW fliers shell that has been drafted a few times while still being a solid pickup for the GW tokens decks.
• UR spells is a deck that I’d like to boost the power level of, and Coruscation Mage is a cheaper Guttersnipe that also can be two bodies at 4 mana. I like the flexibility of this card a lot and R decks weren’t really playing Embereth Shieldbreaker much anyway. Plus this cube has plenty of answers to the few problem artifacts in the cube already.
• Speaking of UR power boosting, Stormchaser's Talent is a 1-drop prowess creature that also returns a spell to hand from the bin and lategame takes over the board by pooping out a billion prowess tokens. Poppet Stitcher was a bit of a pet card that didn’t see a ton of play, so ideally this will be better at all points of the game for UR.
• Goblin Electromancer is way outclassed now by Stormcatch Mentor. ‘Nuff said.
• This might sound crazy, but nobody wanted to play Giant Growth! Overprotect does everything a green combat trick can do but for two mana. I hope this one will get some use in UG tempo but maybe other decks will be interested.
• I discussed this before, but Tatyova, Benthic Druid was not doing a whole lot for Simic other than drawing one card a turn and land drops get missed more often post-turn 5. Prophet of Kruphix is way more in line with what I want UG players trying to do at 5 mana. Might be a little bit oppressive but I’ll keep an eye on it.

There are a few more cards in Bloomburrow I have my eyes on, but these are the only ones I opened at prerelease so there may be a small update again soon. In the meantime, the cube has been playing well when I actually get a draft going. Hopefully that will happen again soon.

I put in Tinybones.