Now that DFT is out and I've actually got the cube physically, it's changelog time for the new set!
Ins:
Gloryheath Lynx: this guy's just really good and represents a consistent well of card advantage and plays nicely in multiple archetypes, namely WB and GW.
Ride's End: This is the de facto removal spell of the set and this cube is no exception it seems, even without beans, this being 2 mana removal is really nice. I want to see how the replacements shake out, I may end up taking out Aerial Assault in the future and replacing it with a white creature that fulfills similar roles to Emissary of Sunrise.
Stock Up and Mischievous Mystic: The hype is real for Stocking Upwards, but my hope is that Mischievous Mystic manages to be effective often and not just fail to trigger ever, and admittedly Stock Up reduces the effectiveness of cards like Mystic.
Grim Bauble, Chitin Gravestalker, and Shefet Archfiend: All of these cards contribute in their own ways to the BG graveyard deck, but also somewhere else for most of them, even if it is mainly just "reanimator strategies". I'm interested to see how reanimator plays out in the cube, and these should help in some ways.
Autarch Mammoth, Earthrumbler, and Ooze Patrol: All of these are attempts to increase the curve of green in the cube, and to feel like it's not a punishment, but a reward, and all of these cards are pretty rad, so I hope it rings true.
Broodheart Engine: The last change here, this acts as both reanimation, but far more importantly, it's a way to fuel up the graveyard long term, which lets the deck feel like it's actually curving out in effect rather than just bursting into the yard then playing with it for the rest of the game.
This update is primarily to just tag everything, but also to lay out what I want out of the next big revamp coming up.
Some things I want to go deeper into:
Things I want to avoid or trim:
I'm excited to do the full update for the past 6 applicable sets, and hopefully look into acquiring the paper version of the cube soon!
In this update: Wilds of Eldraine! Really helpful for adding some more tokens cards and a few more pump spells.
(Slightly) more multicolor cards! This includes the decision to count the MOM Transforms-into-multicolor cards as multicolor for cube design purposes, which led to 7 multicolor slots opening up.
LTR was good for tokens and reanimation and not as good for really any other archetype. I'm taking some opportunities to take off some cards that weren't worth the logistics required for them, as well as a couple of cards initially added to support themes, but are actually just kind of bad.
A teeny change of 3 cards for MAT, mainly looking to cut some low impact cards.
A ton of changes for March of the Machines, also working on spreading out archetypes for all colors.
Changing a lot soon; starting with generalizing color pairs a bit in an effort to generalize the cube as a whole so it can follow themes as a whole rather than 2-color archetypes.
I've been unsatisfied with the UR theme in the cube, so this hopefully will help in overhauling it into a Noncreature-focused deck that focuses specifically on tokens and versatility.