Took some time, but I've done the exercise as well!
ONE HIT WONDERS
Defender; Part of the learn package. Kind of annoying that this doesn't spell out on the card what defender does. The card is a good fit though, so I'm reluctant to cut it. There's space on the card to sharpie on the reminder text myself, which I will probably do as soon as someone asks what defender is...
Emblem; I cut more and more planeswalkers from my cube, and with one half-exception ([cKytheon, Hero of Akros]Kytheon[/c]), they now reside in RUG exclusively. Jace is another one of those half-planeswalkers, and this happens to be the only one that makes an emblem. Still worth it I think, because it brings so much to the table.
Ward; This is a relatively new keyword, so I expect it to crop up a little bit more over time. On this card reminder text is included, and this is such a solid build around that I am willing to give it a try for now.
Bestow; Well. That's awkward. I used to include more bestow cards, but they all fell by the wayside. This is still in because it's a good flyer, and because
Zur the Enchanter can fetch it up.
Devotion; This is probably not worth the single inclusion of devotion, but there isn't really a replacement that does largely the same thing without the awkward keyword. Will have to think on this.
Disturb; As discussed in this thread already, this is the
perfect ninjutsu card. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a plant for Kamigawa 2.
Escalate; This is, quite possibly, the greatest 1B discard spell ever. I want my discard spells at two mana, so I am going to include this one. Luckily for me, it spells out on the card what escalate does. As with some of the other one offs, I used to run more escalate spells, but this is the one that stuck around.
Fabricate; Another last card standing. I finally cut the adorable
Weaponcraft Enthusiast in my VOW update, after cutting
Angel of Invention in an earlier update (for being 1 mana too expensive for the decks that want it). Unlike the other two inclusions, the Master is an exquisite build around card, and it's great fun to ping down people by saccing a bunch of treasures or thopter tokens.
Fading; A pet card. What can I say, I like a little griefing (see
Smokestack). This is a great tool in an aggressive deck, but as my cube slowly lowers in average mana cost, this might need to come out for being too ineffective. Will need to test if this card still has what it takes.
Fear; One of the best evoke cards, with great art to boot, Shriekmaw is going nowhere. Luckily there are plenty of reprints available with reminder text for the fear ability!
Living Weapon; An experimental replacement for
Cranial Plating, I could see this doing a bit too much. I might revert to the Plating based on the fact that this is the only instance of living weapon anyway.
Plainscycling; This is a grindy finisher for the white control player. It doesn't often come together, but this card is great at (eventually) slogging through any number of (your own) wrath effects, while fetching that critical mana in the early game. A definite upside is that this can search for shocklands and triomes and thus provides fixing as well.
Unearth; A very recent addition, and one that might come out again soon, considering that this is the only unearth spell, and
doesn't
really need this effect.
Will of the Council; White's best blanket solution for any (nonland) permanent. It doesn't even target! Not so clean textually, unfortunately, but most players familiar with the card shortcut to "exile target permanent." I would gladly replace this with a cleaner alternative. Come on WotC! You can do it!
ONE TWO PUNCH
Hexproof; Let's be honest. Hexproof suuuuuuuuucks! But it's great on Blossoming Defense, and largely irrelevant on the Valkyrie. It's annoying that neither card spells out what hexproof does, but such is the fate of an evergreen keyword in an expert set...
Amass; This is a fun mechanic, and I wouldn't mind including more of it! Maybe I can reintroduce
Dreadhorde Invasion as an enchantment 'creature' of sorts to replace
Herald of Torment?
Lazotep Plating is also a cool counterspell, and incidentally does contain reminder text for hexproof...
Battle cry; Secretly there's also
Honored Crop-Captain. This is a very simple keyword that says what it does right on the card. I don't think that
Accorder Paladin is better than my other 2 mv creatures in white (at least not in my mind), but I would gladly revisit this keyword if WotC ever decided to reuse it. A
Mistral Charger with battle cry would be gaaaaaas!
Dredge; I'm waiting for a playable, but not broken, blue dredge card. Until then, Life from the Loam is a great build around, and Moldervine Cloak is good at beating people down and moral support for the previously lonely LftL.
I almost entirely cut the enrage package, but these two stragglers are still there. Enrage is fun, and I'm looking forward to WotC revisiting the keyword. For now, these two were the best suited for my cube in combination with both fight spells and the two
Wildfires I run.
Level up; A weird mechanic, but these two one drops are pretty decent. In a pinch you can use them to ninjutsu something onto the battlefield, but they also both provide tons of value if untouched in the late game. I was excited when they spoiled a new level up card for Modern Horizons, but
Hexdrinker doesn't look like an okay Magic card to me. If anyone wants to change my mind, feel free to chip in!
Raid; It's the same card! Yes, I run two copies of this lovely little human! Raid could have been a lovely little mechanic, but it wasn't pushed enough by WotC. I'm waiting for them to repeat raid and put it on actually good baseline cards.
