This might be my favorite non-Horizons set ever for cube, right up there with Throne of Eldraine in terms of inclusions. Even after ignoring the majority of flip cards and anything referencing the day/night mechanic, there were still a large number of cards that I wanted to test out in my cube. My shortlist of inclusions for now are the following:
Y'all know how big a fan I am of pushing aggressive strategies in general and it looks like we've got a ton of goodies here with Midnight Hunt.
Sungold Sentinel is a solid 3/2 human beater in its base case and provides incidental graveyard hate ala
Mardu Woe-Reaper which is always welcome. I'm not a fan of protection-y mechanics, but this Coven ability is conditional and requires a mana investment so it feels like a more fair implementation. Being able to utilize it aggressively to push through damage also opens up neat lines of play. This card is going to play real well in my W/B Human Aggro. Same with a card like
Fateful Absence which is a nice piece of removal that most decks will like, but especially something like a W/x Aggro deck that applies enough pressure to NOT allow the opportunity to crack a clue.
I've already sung my praises of
Champion of the Perished so no need to rehash it, but I'm also excited for the impact two drops they're printing in this set. Both Jadar and the black Adversary slot very well into my existing aggressive strategies and can even play double duty with tokens for something like a Stax deck. I am a bit wary of pushed stats like a 2/3 Deathtouch for 2, but like I mentioned in the spoiler thread I think this is fine in moderation. As long as you're not bogging down the game consistently with very defensive bodies, having one pop up every now and then isn't bad at all. Those kind of spikes in gameplay are healthy when managed correctly. The flexibility of this adversary makes it especially attractive as it can pull double duty as a way to grow the Champion of the Perished by 3 power if deployed with its "kicker" instead. Making 3 bodies also makes it perfect for a
Cryptbreaker activation to draw an additional card. Big fan.
I really like that RB Aggro is having its identity fleshed out a little more with Vampires in this set. Adds a small tribal component to distinguish it from other blends of aggressive decks.
Falkenrath Pit Fighter is just a great one drop with added utility allowing you to pull off a
Tormenting Voice impression and dig deeper for relevant cards in the event of a board stall. The red Adversary is similarly pushed like the black one, but not nearly as egregious with its base stats. A 2/2 haste for 2 with upside is strong as we've seen in the past with something like Robber of the Rich, but we trade in that weird Gonti like trigger for the utility in being able to pull an aggressive leaning
Snapcaster Mage impression in the later game. To top it off we've also got a new Rakdos vampire to further push this tribal slant and it also allows for additional reach in the R/B decks by allowing them to generate pseudo card advantage based off damage. It's kind of similar to
Tymna, the Weaver with its trigger but with a better body and more of a 1v1 lean. Really solid card, nice card that clearly signals an aggressive deck in Rakdos.
Briarbridge Tracker is a dense card with a lot of different applications and checks off a ton of boxes for me. Cares about token synergies to become a bigger beater, can play defense with a solid 2/3 or 4/3 body, and it generates some card advantage with a Clue. This is pretty much a fairer one-shot version of
Tireless Tracker for those of you wary of power level. Having the Clue generation tied to an ETB makes it pretty sweet for inclusion in stuff like blink, Coco, and Pod which love the additional means of turning mana into a card. I think this one is going to play extremely well and will be in my cube for a long time to come. W7 and the new Regrowth effect just seem like solid inclusions for now, time will tell if they end up sticking around long term. I'm 50/50 on how impactful they'll end up being though I have higher hopes for the Revival in sticking around long term for grindier GB and GW strategies.
Finally I'm digging the new weird Simic Ooze. It slots in nicely with my fetch-heavy environment and any self-milling/looting we've got going on, messes around with +1/+1 counters like the majority of my other Simic inclusions, and it has a really weird LTB trigger to pull off a Loam impression. I don't really know how strong this actually is, but it does enough weird stuff to get my gears turning if I see it in a draft so it's well worth running. Also that horror night frame looks super sick and I definitely want a copy for my cube.
In total I've got 13 cards right now which is quite a bit for a normal set. I don't expect everything to stick around long term, but there could be 7-8 cards that will be around for the long haul which would put this up there with many of the most impactful sets since I've been cubing. Especially with no land cycle to include! There weren't a whole lot of cards that inspired new ideas for me in terms of archetype design, but there were a LOT of cards that served to supplement and beef up existing themes which is equally as exciting.
I love 
