Dom's Stream of Consciousness

[Dom Harvey]

Wow they printed a lot of magic cards in the past two years

A whistlestop tour:

Lord of the Rings

Quite uneven in its power distribution; I am tempted by The One Ring but understand why others swear it off. The LOTR Commander cards were a goldmine though especially if you're a Food-motivated Human (or Human-motivated Food)

Bangers: Generous Ent et al, Relic of Sauron


Wilds of Eldraine

Hit a lot of the right flavour notes for me, loved most of this batch of Adventures; Roles were far too finicky for my taste and I wish more was done with Celebration and Bargain

Bangers: Agatha's Soul Cauldron is just incredibly cool and still at the front of my mind when I scan new creatures for colons


Lost Caverns of Ixalan

I like Explore/Maps despite it all (at the most recent PT Hall of Famer Bob Maher dipped out of retirement to sign some not-himself Dark Confidants, registered a deck with Get Lost, and had to ask what Maps were quickly followed by what Explore is). Discover did not in fact fix Cascade; Descend in all its forms was a lot of mess for little upside while Craft took DFC complexity woes to new depths

Bangers: Roaming Throne as the ur-tribal payoff I always wanted; Inti kicked off the trend of discard really mattering and is a great card in its own right; Warden of the Inner Sky is an all-timer for white one-drops in both power and nuance but not as egregious as the MH3 power couple there


Unaliving at Karlov Manor (... + Clue?)

Notionally being set on Ravnica (and putting Gravestorm on a card as a special treat for me) doesn't distract from unengaging cards but the Surveil lands alone will ensure its place in history

Bangers: Surveil lands (it's tough to imagine cracking fetchlands in Cube or Constructed without these in the mix now); Cryptic Coat makes you parse reskinned morph for the sake of one card but it's more than worth it IMO; Insidious Roots is a Hall of Fame build-around


The Clue tie-in expansion was randomly full of beauties like Carnage Interpreter but is still somewhat baffling



Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Many crimes against aesthetics and far too busy; I like plot and hats

Bangers: Cards with 'plot' on them; Nurturing Pixie was a breath of fresh air whose success was swiftly followed by every set having a cool new Nurturing Pixie



BIG SCORE

A conceptual failure but thankfully this set actually is full of great loot and I have a harder time picking bangers here than in the full-size sets: Collector's Cage is fantastic, Sandstorm Salvager is the green Blade Splicer I always wanted, Legion Extruder and Harvester of Misery are flexible and interesting, I really want Simulacrum Synthesizer to work etc


Modern Horizons 3

A real land of contrasts - MH3 wreaked (wroke? wrought?) havoc in Constructed and caused possibly irreparable harm to every format it touched while being one of the deepest wells of Cube + casual highlights in Magic history (even compared to prior MH sets). A decade after OGW I still don't get the obsession with Eldrazi and why wingdings-as-purple-mana is a permanent fixture now and the Energy experiment here proved to be more insular than modular. The Nadu debacle was an explicit confirmation that haphazard and overwhelmed Commander-first designs are a real disaster risk

Bangers: Shifting Woodland is one of my favourite cards ever; Emperor of Bones is a masterpiece; Psychic Frog is absurdly pushed but absurdly fun to play with; great stuff everywhere in the Commander decks; I didn't mean it Nadu ily


Bloomburrow

At a glance it looked like the vibes were immaculate but the cards were weak (and a tribal theme trying and succeeding at being cute but making itself inherently narrow) - in fact this is quietly one of the most powerful sets in a long time and it is responsible for most terms of engagement in Standard. This set finally dragged the spellslinger theme over the line for me and made it exciting with Stormchaser's Talent as a standout there (I'll gladly lead on that T1 or use it to loop Cryptic Command on T8) but many of the Talents are exceptional in their own ways (the Seasons are a great splashy spell cycle that brings back memories of Profane Command etc)

Bangers: Fountainport is the all-purpose Castle Ardenvale I've wanted; Keen-Eyed Curator is a home run of a design with an appealing and realistic subquest that makes you really care about the cards both players have in circulation



Duskmourn

By contrast Duskmourn was destined to catch my eye right away - a delirium theme with enchantments everywhere?! - and delivered on that promise. The Enduring and Overlord cycles are both perfect headliners for the set, there's nice structural support for the type-checking stuff at all rarities, and the Commander decks double down on all the good stuff. I was already keen to push GY stuff but now I'm ready to fully embrace it (see new post/thread!)

Bangers: Abhorrent Oculus marries so many incentives neatly - can cheat it in with reanimation/evolution or similar effects like cloak (and Oculus in turn can sneak in other stuff like the escape Titans) - while being a fine finisher to cast with backup late in your control deck


Aetherdrift

I'm running out of steam and so were they based on the muted/mixed reviews here (though I enjoyed the draft format more than I expected and didn't have the same aesthetic distaste that I shared with others for OTJ)

Bangers: Monument to Endurance



Tarkir

SAFRA DON'T READ THIS (hi hope all is great) but... I wanted more from this set. There are some neat Dragons (Shiko, Banger River Regent despite Omen's apparent similarity to Adventure setting you up for disappointment) but still so few good Dragon payoffs and people waiting more than a decade for some tricolore bangers for their favourite clan left disappointed again (you can pretend Glarb was in this set I guess?). I do like the clan mechanics but the most appealing cards with each of them are all monocolour and don't code as quintessentially Mardu or Temur etc

Bangers: Cori-Steel Cutter (just chill a bit though maybe)




Final Fantasy

As a selective FF fan (loved most of the SNES/PS-era titles (except FF7 obviously), not coincidentally didn't play more after discovering Magic) who is open to UB stuff when it reads as high fantasy (rather than Uncle Ben clubbing Knuckles the Echidna with Ace's Baseball Bat), this one was a mixed bag for me - I didn't relate to a lot of the FF7/10/14 stuff that received the most attention but the rest of the games got some good representation. FF dodged the LOTR issue of the named characters all being weak (compared to a ragtag bunch of orcs) but in part because the overall power level is low. I love the Saga designs and the Saga subtheme piqued my interest; Yuna may be the push I need to give Replenish stuff one more heave

Bangers: Vivi is flavourful + broken + very fun to play + just a lil' guy



Edge of Eternities

So far I love warp and some of the land-themed stuff and this feels more like 'a Magic set' (cowboys not allowed) than I feared so fingers crossed

Bangers: All the rares with warp

 

[Dom Harvey]

We Need to Talk About Cubing

Spoiler

I love (shit-)posting here but it's hard to contribute if people can't cross-reference your posts with your list to see the context for your ideas, and it helps my design process if I have a place to collect and share my thoughts. I'm trying to overhaul my Cube at the moment so there's a lot to talk about, and I even get to draft it occasionally! I decided to get my act together and actually make a topic here at last (ignore the failed experiments of 2013/2014! I'm glad RL didn't exist when my Cube had Bearscape and Giant Harbinger, though perhaps that was when I needed you all most...)

Most recent list (doesn't necessarily reflect irl list): http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/49755
'Core': http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/56540


Philosophy:

- I've been dissatisfied with traditional aggro for a long time. It tends to create scripted games, is as poisonous as a lot of strategies we discourage but on an even larger scale, takes up a lot of slots, and places firm constraints on what else I can do in the Cube - it's hard to go deep on tokens, or fill up on solid midrange creatures, when you have to keep Elite Vanguard viable.

- I still want to have some aggressive strategies, and cutting normal aggro frees up slots for 'themed' aggro decks that have a more coherent identity: sacrifice, tokens, prowess, Voltron, and so on. Many cheap creatures in the Cube either have fun interactions elsewhere (Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit) or are excellent in the late game too (Figure of Destiny/Warden of the First Tree). Between this, the 'combo' elements in the aggro decks, and a careful pruning of the oppressive late-game cards that control decks in enjoy in most Cubes, every stage of the game is contested.

- I want to have combo support in the Cube without abandoning interactive gameplay, and I think the way to do this is to fold 'combo' into both aggro and control. This adds a new dimension to decks like these that stops them from seeming like 'just another' aggro or control deck, asks for fewer slots for narrow combo cards, and often makes them easier to interact with. Combos centred around creatures are easier to both assemble and fight using existing tools in the Cube, so that's where most of them lie.

Aggro specifically becomes stronger and more interesting. Aggro-combo decks tend to be a lot more resilient than normal aggro, and they can keep pace at any stage of the game. You don't just get your entire start blanked by a Kitchen Finks and you have actual sequencing decisions. There's also much greater satisfaction in having/facing the nut draw when that involves lots of moving parts working together instead of a simple 1-2-3-4 curve.

As Ari Lax said about the RG Landfall deck:







- This has massive implications for the colour pie. In most Cubes, aggro is red's primary strategy and its removal is strong for being able to gun down small creatures; without it, red needs a new identity and burn is a lot worse against tokens, large creatures, and creatures with ETB effects. Similarly, green's strength against aggro is blunted in a world where two-drops are routinely bigger than your 4/4. This forced a shift in what those colours want to do, which in turn spilled over into the other colours.

- I don't have many ways to cheat things out early. I've cut all the fast artifact mana, including one of my darlings in Coalition Relic. The only non-creature cards that can reanimate something large for less than four mana are conditional in some way (or on the watch-list), and there's nothing like Sundering Titan or Griselbrand that ends the game on the spot.

- I don't want any one card to be unanswerable if it resolves; I'm taking care to ensure that everything has a natural foil. The few planeswalkers that I do have aren't good at defending themselves and are weak to haste/trample creatures and removal, tokens have lots of sweepers and ways to fly over or go through them, large creatures have Clones and Threatens, and so on. I've cut most of the cards that destroy multiple lands (and with them the opponent's ability to compete in the game), and the ones that remain require a fair bit of setup.

- I want as many games as possible to feel competitive, which means smoothing out some of the variance that's inherent to Magic. The wide variety of mana sinks mean that even the low curve decks can justify a higher land count. I've sought out cards like Read the Bones and Nissa, Vastwood Seer that help 'bridge the gap' between different stages of the game, as well as lots of 'incidental' deck manipulation like scry (Temples, Magma Jet) and cycling. I make an effort to ensure blue doesn't have a near-monopoly on good card draw and filtering; the only colour that's lacking in that department is white, but there's not much I can do until they print cards that fix it.

I also want those games to remain competitive for as long as possible. The issue I have with the all-in Savannah Lions/Jackal Pup aggro decks as well as the Ulamog/Tooth and Nail ramp decks is that they dominate one phase of the game but are weak in the others so, if that phase is shortened/extended by too much, the game isn't interesting. I've tried to make it so that the midrange and control decks are still doing relevant things in the early game while the aggressive decks can still contest the mid/late game.

Part of this is stocking the Cube with cards that let you play from behind and overturn a losing position without pushing you even further ahead if you're winning. Sweepers, purely defensive removal like Condemn, cards like Firestorm that offer cheap ways to convert resources into something that affects the board, well-sized midrange creatures that won't always get removed instantly, and ways of turning the opponent's cards against them (Zealous Conscripts, Puppeteer Clique, Phantasmal Image) all help here. Planeswalkers are the biggest offender for letting the player in front cement their lead (Gideon in Standard exemplifies this to an absurd degree and warps the format around itself in the process) so I've benched most of them.

This also means capping the overall power level of the Cube. If you can't afford to take a turn off, stumble for a moment, or have your land come in tapped, you get a lot of non-games. I'm fine with the occasional blowout or Turn 4 kill as long as it's the exception rather than the rule.


- The cute themes and interactions I want to support in the Cube need to actually be good. When I supported Constellation, I learned quickly that it couldn't ever beat an Ugin: it's fine for cards to be strong, but not for one card's presence in the Cube or a deck to singlehandedly neuter a strategy. One of the least enjoyable aspects of Constructed is that a single card can easily define a format and kick out its competitors in a way that decreases overall diversity: Dromoka's Command and Reflector Mage are recent examples. The depth and breadth of a Limited card pool means that those cards can coexist: I can have a Dromoka's Command and powerful enchantments, or Reflector Mage and non-value creatures. I don't want to curtail that. Still, I don't want players to feel that their hard work in doing what the Cube encourages them to do is all for nothing.



- Supporting my chosen themes and ideas means having a lot of gold cards, which necessitates a lot of manafixing. As I've argued before I think this is a necessary part of Cube anyway, so I have no reservations about it. When there are too many, gold cards restrict your options during the draft; when they are backed with enough fixing and are interesting in their own right, they act as excellent bridges into other colours and lead to decks that look and feel very impressive.

- Creatures have become much, much stronger and more integral to the game in recent years. Effects that could pass as cards on their own are increasingly being attached to creatures. Some of the results are obvious - we have many more cheap blink and reanimation targets - but its main consequence is that one-for-one removal has become weaker. This is especially true in my Cube, where the tokens and sacrifice themes as well as the abundance of ETB creatures all line up well against Doom Blade and cards like Hero of Bladehold that demand an immediate answer are less common. However, the synergy-based decks are more vulnerable to a specific piece being taken and decks like Berserkers are naturally weak to cheap removal. It's hard to strike the right balance, and I don't claim to have done so yet.

I also support the 'move in on one creature' strategy, which is highly vulnerable to those cards. This sets up a RPS dynamic of going wide > point removal > building a creature; for this to be sustainable, we have to complete the loop by making 'building a creature > going wide' true, which isn't always a natural result. Alternatively, we can invert this dynamic by giving the 'build a creature' decks enough tools to beat removal and finding ways to not lose value on point removal by attaching it to creatures or getting additional value from prowess and the like.

- A related issue: when most effects are tied to creatures, and a lot of those creatures bring other bodies with them or give you more cards, it's easy for boards to stall out - as Standard over the past few years has shown. I'm giving extra credit to cards that can simplify boards, go through/around/over/under, or change the dynamic of the game so that it's not just about who's ahead on board.


- In a Cube where the majority of cards have a lot of different applications and there are themes that intersect in weird and unexpected ways, the cognitive burden on your drafters is pretty high. Even as the person who knows the most about the Cube, I still constantly learn new things - in my most recent draft, someone assembled Alhammarret's Archive + Trading Post and it blew my mind. My Cube is aimed at experienced players - I'm not making sacrifices on behalf of newer players - but it's helpful if everyone has some idea of what works and what doesn't and can fall back on a conventional strategy if their experiments aren't succeeding. My design process this time started by looking at successful Standard lists of the past few years to provide a 'core' of cards that can fill out a typical deck; any given drafter will have a frame of reference for many of these cards and, whatever the flaws of any one Standard format, WotC has done very well recently when it comes to printing powerful and reliable cards that are also fun and interesting to play with. For marginal card choices, simplicity will be a big tiebreaker: I recently cut Malicious Affliction for Doom Blade even though I'm pushing the sac theme in black because Doom Blade doesn't make you worry about the mana cost and how to eke out more value via Morbid, it just does what it says on the tin (and it looks great in foil). This isn't at odds with the overall desire for more complexity; on the contrary, you need a certain density of basic, universally playable effects to give you room to explore elsewhere.

I love it if someone wants to go off the deep end with Pyromancer's Goggles or assemble a complicated web of interactions with strange emergent properties, but there are always people at any draft table who just want to play the type of Magic they are familiar with. That's no less valid an approach, and you need people like that not just to fill out a draft pod but to keep the format sustainable; you can't have everyone going off the reservation, someone has to stick around to make sure things are ok.


- If someone does want to take a deep dive in the drafting process, they should be rewarded for it. Ideally, every pick should prompt you to reevaluate both individual cards and your larger strategy, adding new dimensions to your deck. Instead of just being a collection of good cards, the best decks should be systems that are more than the sum of their parts.

Maybe I have what looks like a normal WG aggro shell and I'm passed Vengevine. That's pretty good in my deck no matter what, but how can I use it to its full potential? The Wild Mongrel I have can bin it for free, and this Hangarback Walker in the next pack lets my Ranger of Eos return it on its own for no added cost. Mikaeus, the Lunarch is a '1-drop' for Vengevine and Ranger that works great with Hangarback, so I'll take that, and it also buffs the tokens from Hallowed Spiritkeeper which I'm already happy to see. Eidolon of Countless Battles is interesting, it's a lot of damage with these token makers and the tokens fly so it's easy to get a big hit in, and it's nice insurance against sweepers. With Eidolon and Hangarback, the Tarmogoyf I took earlier is looking better and better...

Equally, it's a ton of fun to take a card that wants a strong commitment and focus on it. This is especially true if there are multiple copies of that card: there have been lots of CubeTutor drafts where I've first-picked a Collected Company, quickly scooped up the second one, and frantically clicked through the remaining packs to see what my Company curve would be. When you know there's a card in the draft with your name on it but don't know if it will come to you, or when you pass it early and desperately hope to wheel it, the sweat becomes that much more exciting. If you can sense that an archetype is undrafted and move in, the glee at scooping up everything you want outweighs any boredom from being on autopilot.


- One of the most fun aspects of recent Standard is that decks can assume different positions both in-game and with their sideboarding: Brad Nelson played a RW Aggro deck (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29537_RW-Aggro-At-The-Pro-Tour-30th.html) that would often SB into a control deck for Game 2, and then re-board into a proactive midrange deck with less removal and more threats for Game 3. I want to recreate that here if I can: we don't talk much about sideboarding in a Cube context, but the ability to adjust your deck's philosophy and be paid off for it is a mark of a good environment.

- It's clearly a problem if too many cards are very narrow, but I'm fine with having some cards that are 10s or 2s rather than 7s. I don't expect the Jeskai Ascendancy deck or the Hardened Scales deck to come together, but when they do it's a lot more memorable than UW Control deck #437

- My Cube should cater to a wide range of play styles and personalities and show off what Magic has been and can be. I love reading up on old decks and the general history of Magic; I want everyone to open a pack and be reminded of decks and formats from years ago that they truly loved and mastered; if I can please the aggro and control fans while also throwing a bone to the combo, prison, and 'I'll go down the rabbit hole while Yakety Sax plays on a loop in my head' folk, I should. Iconic or unique cards get leeway here that they wouldn't enjoy in a blind audition for a power-max Cube. At the same time, I like the direction of recent design even as I shake my head at specific decisions; you could open a pack and be forgiven for thinking it's a Modern Cube with a few old-bordered usurpers sneaking in. It's also my Cube, and any choices I make will necessarily reflect my own biases and preferences; a Cube is a labour of love and ought to have a personal touch to it.


-- As a general aim, I want every colour and colour combination to have a complex mix of identities. Most Cubes maintain a large overlap between the colour pie and the range of available archetypes:

White: Aggro, with some Wraths and planeswalkers
Blue: Control
Black: Often has an identity crisis (see the 'what's the matter with black' discussions of 2012); Carnophage and friends, when included, aren't supported strongly, so the colour is reduced to removal and some reanimation
Red: Heavy aggro with the occasional Sneak Attack or Wildfire; burn spells get co-opted by midrange or control
Green: Ramp and more ramp

Any deck that doesn't conform to its colours' primary role looks like a mess, and there's little room for pivoting and bridging between colours and roles. Ideally each colour should offer something to each strategy, with the understanding that some will do that better than others. I tried the approach that's popular here (and which Sam Black wrote about in his most recent foray into Cube) of assigning each colour pair or shard/wedge a task and building around that, but could never come up with something that satisfied me. For this I'm going to do the opposite: start with the deck types I want to push, and work out how the colours match up from there.

That was 9(!!) years ago. What does the game look like now?

- The themed/engine aggro or aggro-combo decks I was pining for back then are flourishing; every set brings a new bounty for the Tokens, Counters, Sac etc decks of the world. Meanwhile, the Savannah Lions tribe is racking up more and more Ls and even conventional Cubes that loved debating if some new 2/1 was above or below Dragon Hunter are realizing they can free up a lot of space to use on cards that have aged better. So many of the eye-catching cheap threats these days have 3 or 4 toughness on the house and do much more besides.

I was always sceptical of supporting the tempo/aggro-control decks but after a deluge of new tools over the past year I think I can embrace those now in a way that's consistent with my other goals.


- I still don't want the extremes of the Mana Crypt or Flash experience but you become desensitized to some of that when the 3-drops and 4-drops are so strong that just casting them on curve or with 'normal' ramp is a strong default. Nobody bats an eye at stuff like Signets or Coalition Relic any more; the debates about whether Signets murder green in a brutal case of ego death seem even more antiquated now. I remember a time when I was cutting Ugin, the Spirit Dragon for being too obnoxious as a top-end card (our favourite 'GRBS' term feels much more selective now!); now, I struggle to find a place for it at all.


- The 'every card is a Mulldrifter -> removal is worse BUT good at breaking up synergies' dynamic has taken an intriguing turn that aligns with another shift in my understanding of design enabled by these trends. The Mulldrifter vs Baneslayer examples feel like a relic of their time (15 years ago!!) - these days, the Mulldrifters give you an immediate on-board advantage and the Baneslayers cost 2-3 mana and are universally threatening rather than just ways to swing the game vs aggro or break board stalls. Chapin's secret third thing (Titans - threats where you care about the body and the effect they leave behind) now often comes in at a lower price point than the original Baneslayers!

It's no accident that Lucky Paper Radio framed their episode on this topic as Elvish Visionaries vs Tarmogoyfs (though, as a seminal theory piece put it, you have Elvish Visionaries vs Elderfang Disciples and you have a perpendicular axis of Visionaries vs Blade Splicers).

There's no shortage of cool literal Baneslayers (Boon-Bringer Valkyrie is a recent favourite - but maybe because backup has that Mulldrifter tinge to it??) but the dance of threats vs removal generally plays out much further down the curve. '[Just] Dies to Doom Blade' isn't an inherently bad property - and you need it to be true of most cards for anyone to care about Doom Blades - but it's risky when that Doom Blade is also trading up on mana against your big idiot. Blade on Baneslayer is a great trade - Blade on Tarmogoyf is just going through the motions. The 'Vindicate test' also feels silly now - a three-mana removal spell that 'only' trades one-for-one doesn't feel impressive unless it's cutting off their one blue source or something.

What do you get for your mana? The past few years (turbocharged by the Horizons sets) have given us one-drops that would make a Victorian child/Premodern boomer die instantly upon reading them (though that part might take a while). Having Ragavan or Guide of Souls/Ocelot Pride in a format changes the texture of games in a big way - but, if you have the Bolt/Push, life goes on. At the other end, the Thraben Inspector/Spyglass Siren class of cards has proved very popular in part because they aren't controversial - nobody complains about losing to Inspector even when it was crucial to the eventual outcome. You don't get Titans at one - you can one-for-one the ones you care about - but there are also limits on how many build-arounds you can put at that cost.

Jumping up to three mana, you now get anything you could ever ask for. Just look at red's roster of threes compared to five years ago - instead of a bunch of Rabblemaster impersonators, you now get a little bit of everything (Fable) or hard-hitters like Laelia that will dominate any game they survive in (including the likes of Broadside Bombardiers that were not balanced with 1v1 Magic in mind). There are more Blade Splicers and more Adelines. You either have to kill the Baneslayer on sight or have to trade for some part of the Mulldrifter anyway.


https://articles.starcitygames.com/...erfang-disciple-the-nature-of-card-advantage/

Two mana is the sweet spot where you find the cards that shape a game without overwhelming it. This spans the range from the proactive two-drops that are big or flexible enough to be good draws on Turn 7 (Bristly Bill) to the cards that let the controlling decks of their era shift gears (Stoneforge Mystic, Bitterblossom, Jace VP, Search for Azcanta) to the bread-and-butter 'midrange' cards that helped change that term from an insult to a compliment (Reckoner Bankbuster). The gold XY two-drops are a go-to signpost for their colour pairs in Limited and having the minimum cost that's still gold sharpens your focus on what that gets you compared to a mono-X two-drop (see Territorial Kavu, Basim Ibn Ishaq, various legends but even the innocuous Bloodtithe Harvester). Trading up or down on mana with removal doesn't feel horrible but that trade is usually at least an equal one - you don't get two mana Titans.

Two is also an ideal 'atomic unit' of mana to build dynamic games. You may face a tough choice of which two-drop to lead with on Turn 2; on Turn 3 you can pair it with a one-drop (which in many Cubes can also be a tap land or fetching for that if it's a Triome/Surveil/Shockland) and a sequence like Bolt/Push + a good two-drop can swing the pacing of a game back in your favour; on Turn 4 you can change the board dramatically with a pair of two-drops or go for a single, high-impact/investment play. You can lean into this difference to create decks and games that feel distinct - a deck playing a steady clip of cheap Tarmogoyfs feels quite different from a deck going bigger with actual-ish Baneslayers or playing safe but steady with Mulldrifters.

Once you have this 'baseline' amount of mana, you can scan for more expensive cards that rebuy that (the OG Garruk Wildspeaker through Nissa Who Shakes the World in ramp or Teferi Hero of Dominaria in control etc) or look for that ('small reanimation' ala Extraction Specialist is a heavily supported theme in white at this point; Collected Company is maybe close to a decent hit rate now!) and ask how your other mana sinks coexist with this base rate (Cryptic Coat bouncing itself for 1U, Chrome Host Seedshark spitting out objects that become threats for 2 alongside Clues/Food as common ways to spend 2). It's easy to be light on mana/colours but outside the most extreme cases a hand full of 2s will at least have a play every turn.

It's telling that even as blue lags far behind every other colour in proactive one-drops with a wide audience (as it arguably should!), it now has more than enough good two-drops to match the count in other colours for most Cubes especially counting Ux pairs like UB and UR.


- The board stall issue actually seems to have taken care of itself: even though boards fill up with rectangles at a dizzying rate and high toughness is a default the proactive threats are strong enough that they can force the board to simplify in combat or offer temporary/conditional stat boosts. Back in the day your Sylvan Advocate and Courser of Kruphix might stare at its reflection for hours; now, Sentinel of the Nameless City can hope to roll a buff and mow down an opposing X/4.

- On the other hand, the complexity problem has only spiralled further and the fragmentation of sets/mechanics (+ removal of blocks) has led to many individually cool designs featuring [Set Mechanic] which aren't surrounded by enough other examples that the mechanic feels like part of a larger whole (rather than something you have to learn and track for the sake of just one card). I love Cryptic Coat but I know it's likely to be the only cloak card in a given Cube so there's no easy shorthand there - that's not a dealbreaker by itself but when there are many Cryptic Coats (each with their own cloak) spread across colours and themes things get very complex very quickly. Additionally, many new mechanics are much more tolerant of logistical complexity in paper (especially if a digital client does most of the work for you) while existing forms of complexity are embraced further; I was never ideological about DFCs but I want them to be uniform and/or iconic enough that you're not unsleeving it and tilting your head to read something you'll forget by the end of the pack.

The saving grace here is that many themes are supported enough now that you don't need to go out of your way to work in some new card if there's a more familiar and simple tool that fits well enough - and with more cards printed each year than anyone can track, the burden of proof for any weird new thing is higher by default (both compared to its own cohort and the past X years of cards from simpler times). I thought about using some contrived house rule to make Daybound/Nightbound tolerable just for Graveyard Trespasser because of how uniquely good that card was at bolstering black midrange while doing a bit of everything; now that it doesn't stand out from the pack, why bother?

I welcome the deluge of new Cube bangers but it's increasingly rare to see something that gives you that rush while also being simple and intuitive.


- Cube as a museum or as a personal monument is more tricky now too. With the influx of Commander staples not balanced for 1v1 play or specific Constructed pipelines, many of the best Cube cards from the past few years only exist to people like us as 'the best new Cube cards' rather than building their own career elsewhere. At the extremes you have top-shelf power-max Vintage Cube cards like Broadside Bombardiers or Minsc & Boo but even something harmless like Staff of the Storyteller lacks this context - a neat design but not one that could ever give that fuzzy feeling of remembering some sweet deck with it that I played in a tournament.

These cards also lack that on-ramp that nostalgia gives you. If you were playing Back Then you probably got whacked by Glorybringer enough to appreciate its power and how it compares to other hasty five-drop Dragons but it's easy to miss how good a Staff is (or even how it functions!) unless you had this exact experience of Cubing with it before.


- The focus on low curves along with even more good mana sinks and splashes being even more flexible/easy thanks to Triomes/Surveil lands enhancing fetches has great implications for gameplay but also means you always have at least a functional deck even if the draft went awry; this in turn lets you fill the Cube with more narrow tools and more speculative build-arounds for dreamers to chase. If you have to cut 4-5+ generic cards every time anyway, why not turn some of those into candidates for #1 card in the Cube in the right context?