For the past few days I simply could not stop tossing and turning in my bed thinking over so many little changes and balance issues with my cube. I doubt this will be the last by any means. But I feel like I can at the very least sleep soundly for a long time.

What was cut? I removed a lot of the Flashback cards that had off-color Flashbacks. It just felt like such a nightmare to make it symmetrical that I just gutted it for single-use spells since 9/10 times that's what players included them for anyway. I doubled down on White, Black and Green's identities. White is all about ETB spam to pile up value, Black is discard and recursion heavy, and Green is land spamming for early fatties and deck-thinning.

Until next time.

I decided to fix the issue of 'Timeshifted' Rares which is not really fair or in the spirit of what this cube is meant to be. I cut out some other cards which were either boring, under-powered, passed almost every time or worst of all very annoying to play with.

I decided to cut back on Mana production in order to make it less convenient to play anything beyond 3c decks. I also added some additional Graveyard hate cards so those strategies can be interacted with more.

Because this is a singleton cube, I wanted to emphasize the single element. Thus I sought to cut back cards that were exact or similar to other cards already present in the cube. There are still a couple that I missed but for the most part the 'uniqueness' has been amped up a bit. Here are my changes.

Revoke Existence > Banisher Priest: Added a flexible removal card with a very powerful effect. Fiend Hunter was already in the cube so I cut the Priest for another spell card to cut the creature count down for White (now White, Red, and Black all have equal Creatures, with Blue having the least and Green having the most, both by a difference of 3)

Archaeomancer > Aether Adept: Man O War already exists so I wanted another creature with a powerful on summon ability. Archaeomancer gives Blue players a bit more recursion which is always helpful.

Ravenous Rats > Nantuko Husk: After cutting token generation from the cube, Nantuko Husk became a complete dud. I decided to replace it with the simple and efficient Rats for more discard power.

Red: I wanted to lower Burn's power as an archetype while also shaking things up with more individual cards. I cut Searing Spear and Lightning Strike since they are both lesser variants of Incinerate. Whipflare is for an added board wipe, while Uphill Battle helps the grindier red decks come out on top against potential board locks. While also upping the total Enchantment count, justifying the earlier inclusions of Enchantment hate. Smash is another solid addition, being a definite answer to any of the many Artifact cards, while also providing a cantrip to boost deck consistency, something that Red can struggle with.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the cube and don't think I will be changing anything for a long time. I would have to say this is the definitive edition of my budget cube, for now at least.

BIG UPDATE: Took out some stuff from White, Red and Green. Added an obscure alternate printing of Loyal Sentry (Alaborn Zealot) because I love that card and it's a very powerful effect. Added in Suture Priest to help with life gain and burn.

For Red, I cut out generic Haste bodies for Artifact hate, which is always helpful. On top of that, I added the almighty Fireblast as an explosive finisher. Red might still be too powerful, but with the amount of counter magic and removal present it certainly won't win without a struggle. I'll definitely have to come back at some point and cut back the burn spells with some other neat stuff instead.

For Green I looked at my mana-dorks and realized I had too many (6 in total). I cut back the two that did not generate Green mana and replaced them with the infamous Experiment One and Spike Feeder, an interesting card that has yet to prove its worth. The last update for Green was replacing Farseek with Commune with the Gods. A versatile addition to any creature, enchantment or graveyard focused deck. I wanted to steer Green away from explicit ramp and multicolor enabling. You can still grab Lands with Sylvan Scrying or Rampant Growth but that's all.

My final addition was Moonhold for the Red/White cards. I don't have a whole lot to say about it. It is an interesting card that I want to see players attempt to break and abuse. It's a pretty annoying stun effect, but you can still get around it by using spells that drop lands or creatures for you.

Got rid of the crappy dual colored enchants

Cut back artifacts and added some better consistency boosters

The Vamp is back!