UPDATES
I went ahead and incorporated a bunch of feedback, both from here and from my players, as well as my own experiences and made a few changes.
IN
OUT
Commentary on specific changes:
White
Mother of Runes - She's there to promote white aggro some more. Hopefully she doesn't prove too oppressive. She replaces Emeria Angel, who just hasn't done much in all the time she's been in.
Devouring Light - Just a more flexible spell than Immolating Glare. I notice now that 4/5 of the colors have spells that can be cast while you are tapped out. I may want to add something to green and call it a cycle. Maybe
Invigorate or
Mutagenic Growth.
Leonin Relic-Warder - Since the enchantment and artifact themes have proven to be a success, I feel like white needs at least one piece of dedicated hate to counter them. It replaces
Faith's Fetters in a subtle effort to boost aggro a bit (removal+lifegain might be too good).
Myth Realized - Since I cut Faith's Fetters, but I want to keep up a decent enchantment density, I decided to try this out. This replaces
Sunblast Angel in an effort to tone down the blink deck.
Thraben Inspector - I asked my players if I should include this and the answer was a resounding yes. So we're giving it a shot. It replaces
Rootborn Defenses, for no real reason other than that it just seems awkward.
Blue
Crush of Tentacles -
Quiet Contemplation ended up a failure, so we're trying a much more powerful spell incentive instead.
Illusory Ambusher - Mizzium Meddler wasn't doing much, and this card caught my eye so we're trying it.
Scatter to the Winds - Glen Elendra Archmage was just too oppressive. It dictated almost every game I saw it played in, and was especially strong in the blink deck where it could be used to create a lock. I like the idea of a counterspell + creature, though, so we're trying this.
Black
Blackmail - This card is just cooler than
Duress. It creates an interesting FoF-like minigame. We're trying it.
Sarcomancy - Carnophage was always the weakest black aggro card in the cube, which stayed as long as it did due to a combination of nostalgia and amazing art. Sarcomancy is also a classic, though, and it's an enchantment to boot. It can't be reanimated with
Relentless Dead, but it can be flickered for value so I consider it a wash.
Bloodghast - I don't know why I ever cut this. I think I just didn't want too many
cards and felt that for some reason Vampire Hexmage filled a vital role. It doesn't, and Bloodghast fills a more important role giving black stuff to discard for value.
Sever the Bloodline -
Gild is a pet card of mine. I love the flavor of it, and the effect of giving black an exile on 4 is good. However, the gold token was kind of awkward and didn't really fit with most of black's strategies, and Sever has both utility against tokens, which are very strong in this cube, and it can be discarded for value like Bloodghast.
Dread Return -
Diabolic Servitude was always intended to be more of a value play, but it just was too weak and never saw much play. Dread Return plays well with tokens and discard, so we're trying it instead.
Red
Shaman of the Great Hunt - I tried to remember the last time I saw
Fanatic of Mogis get cast. I couldn't. I waffled between adding Shaman and good ol'
FTK, who I have resisted adding up until now due to power level concerns.
Mogg War Marshall - Just giving red wide aggro and sacrifice decks some more tokens to play with.
Lightning Berserker was kind of boring me, anyway.
Green
Vines of Vastwood and Become Immense - I realized that I didn't have a single combat trick in green, which is a major part of green's toolkit. We're gonna try these guys because they're super powerful and hopefully can compete in the removal rich environment I have. They replace
Curse of Predation for being too powerful, and
Garruk Wildspeaker for being a redundant planeswalker.
Ohran Viper - I just think this guy is cool and super green, and forces your opponent into a neat catch-22. It replaces
Experiment One, who gets more awkward the more green aggro pieces I cut.
Evolutionary Leap -
Moldgraf Scavenger unfortunately was a bust. Delirium proved to be too tough to turn on outside of a dedicated environment for it to be worth it. It gets replaced with Leap, which just feels like a better graveyard card with a lot of play to it.
Guilds
Jori En, Ruin Diver and Electrolyze - Artifacts turned out to be a pretty successful archetype in Izzet, and spells was pretty strong too. Izzet didn't also need generically good control tools like
Ral Zarek and
Keranos, God of Storms.
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury - I waffled between this guy and
Blightning to replace
Rakdos's Return, which just turned out to not fit with what Rakdos was trying to do. I'm gonna try this guy as an aggro curve topper.
Ezuri, Claw of Progress - This guy is just cooler than
Bounding Krasis, and I keep struggling with an identity for Simic. I have no idea if he's good, but we'll try it.
Ghor-Clan Rampager -
Boggart Ram-Gang wasn't really doing much, and as I stated before I was looking to add more interaction on the combat step with combat tricks.
Mistmeadow Witch -
Venser, the Sojourner has to go. He's just too good, and a big reason why the blink deck has been so good. Witch at least forces you to commit resources if you want to blink stuff every turn.
Other
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - Honestly, this guy's just here because I got a specific request from one of my players to put him back in. Plus, thinking about it, Ugin is kind of an obvious auto-pick. He's super powerful and goes in almost any deck. Nicky B gets a second chance.
Jinxed Idol -
Smokestack is too slow. Braids gets to stay for now since she keeps showing up in decks online. Idol is good in the same kinds of decks Smokestack works in, but in a different way. Let's see if it does any better.
