I don’t know what the weather is like where you live, dear reader, but it’s firmly soup season here in Minnesota. The bitter cold of winter hasn’t reared its ugly head just yet, but it’s just around the corner, and the appeal of spending time indoors grows as daylight shrinks. It’s a great time to grab a blanket and draft a digital Cube. Luckily for me, the Modern Cube returns to Magic Online (MTGO) today for a two-week stretch!
Carmen Handy has been in charge of the MTGO Cube updates as of late, though credit for the updates for this run of Modern Cube go largely to Aaron Sorrels. I remember seeing Aaron around back in my coverage days, and he seemed like a pretty smart guy with very nice hair. Check out his article on the Cube’s updates on the mothership for the breakdown of the philosophy behind his changes. For an easier look at the Cube, I’ve also ported the list over to Cube Cobra.
It’s been over a year since we drafted the Modern Cube, and as such the changelog is long. The last update was at least after Modern Horizons 2, but a full year of Magic releases is at least comparable to one Horizons set. The Modern Cube has also been under a lot less scrutiny than the Vintage Cube, so it makes sense to see some fundamental shifts when the Cube gets its occasional update. This update puts a high emphasis on strategies that work or have worked in Modern Constructed, with a more specific emphasis on facilitating combo decks. Everything looks like a huge step in the right direction at a glance, so let’s break the Cube down by color to see what’s going on!
White
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White has upgrades to cards near the middle or bottom half of the Cube’s power band, with some attention to keeping things tame at the top of the power band as well. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Quarantine Field were both standouts for white with pretty uninteresting play patterns, and they make enough sense to cut. Meanwhile, upgrading Fairgrounds Warden to Brutal Cathar and getting newer staples like Intrepid Adversary into the spread are the sorts of things that bring the Cube closer to 2022 Magic.
White will remain a bit better at midrange things than full-on beatdowns with these updates, but standouts like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar can really turn up the heat in the beatdown department. Worth paying a little more attention to are the combos that have been opened up to white drafters. Heliod, Sun-Crowned plus Walking Ballista; assorted Felidar Guardian shenanigans; and a few avenues to persist combo are all open now. Getting access to some card selection and creature tutors will often be as important or more important than getting the combo cards themselves, so be mindful of that as you approach drafting these decks.
It is rather unfortunate that the Cube’s constraints exclude cards that are only legal in Eternal formats like Swift Configuration, as every bit of combo support helps when we’re talking about looking for a handful of things in a 540-card Cube. This makes Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies a bit less desirable than they would be in a Cube that could support all the different combos, but they’re worth keeping in mind all the same.
Blue
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I’m incredibly angry that I just typed “Out: Essence Scatter, In: Remove Soul.” That’s strike one, Sorrels.
These changes also are mostly upgrades across the board, as well as some additional combo support. For blue, these combos come in the form of taking extra turns. Lier, Disciple of the Drowned is a way to get some extra use out of a Time Warp, and Nexus of Fate is a sort of one-card infinite-turns combo with extra steps.
I love seeing the blue devotion stuff get the boot, and equally love using Archmage’s Charm as a payoff for drafting a mono-blue or nearly mono-blue deck. I don’t quite understand how Delver of Secrets survived this update, and needless to say I will continue to contend that it’s one of very few pitfalls to drafting blue in this and many other Cubes.
It’s pretty odd to see Pestermite without Deceiver Exarch, though considering the Modern ban I’m not surprised to see no Splinter Twin. Pestermite is firmly okay at wielding Equipment, and is more something to watch out for as a potential Kiki-Jiki combo. I imagine these combos will perform best when featured alongside Vivien on the Hunt.
Hullbreaker Horror has underperformed my expectations in Vintage Cube, though the more likely a player is to just play seven lands and still have a healthy life total, the more brutal the card can be. In this Cube, just casting Hullbreaker Horror is a big deal. Seven mana is a lot, but I expect both it and Nexus of Fate to be huge players with this update.
Black
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With this update, there’s actually a strong draftable black aggressive deck in this Cube. Some of the strength here will come from having sacrifice payoffs and access to bombs like The Meathook Massacre, but I’m actively excited about drafting Evolved Sleeper in this Cube. I will say that I’m quite cold on Village Rites and Deadly Dispute. The other decks are going to be long on powerful individual cards, and you want the big payoffs like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician rather than a lot of fiddly noise.
Mind Shatter was one of the bigger draws to black in this old Cube list, and its exclusion looks to be another quality-of-life improvement as the Cube moves away from isolated haymakers stacked in piles of cards towards supporting more cohesive decks. I’m also a big fan of removing the medium-powered Reanimator stuff that tended to either be over- or underwhelming while producing few quality games.
When drafting black in this Cube, just pay mind to drafting cards that can actually generate card advantage. Knight of the Ebon Legion is a solid addition to a well-constructed deck that can fight through removal, blockers, and sweepers, but your Bloodghasts, your sacrifice outlets, your planeswalkers, and your other card draw effects like Yawgmoth are going to be the heroes of successful black decks in this environment.
Red
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The cuts here are great. That was quite a selection of barely playable cards. Not all of the new additions are exciting, but Bloodthirsty Adversary and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker are two awesome new cards that significantly raise red’s stock. Goblin Bombardment is also a huge deal, and is one of the better things to combine with The Meathook Massacre.
When approaching drafting red in Modern Cube, it’s very important to remember that Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is much stronger in Vintage Cube than it is in Cubes like this that tend to involve a lot more potential blockers where maindecking spot removal pays much better dividends. The red midrange and combo decks are quite a bit more appealing than the beatdown decks, barring having a cohesive Sacrifice shell.
I’m somewhat perplexed to see Risk Factor enter the Cube. It’s a kind of fine card for Arena Cube, but it’s pretty contextually weak and is the sort of card that players often categorically overvalue. Maybe the card was added because players love punisher cards so much? I liked the card well enough when I was speed-running Arena Cube, but it’s a medium card that mostly only works in aggressive decks.
Green
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A couple of cards that I love are on the outs here, but if I ever see another Yavimaya Elder or Thrun, the Last Troll in my life, it will be too soon. Most of the cards making their way in are upgrades on power level, with the reintroduction of Utopia Sprawl being something I’m a bit skeptical of. I suppose it’s just a card that sees and has seen a lot of Modern play, but it’s fairly easily the scariest opener in the Cube. Removing Plow Under is another quality of life thing, especially as bouncelands enter the Cube, but it is one that I will miss.
Abundant Harvest is another card that hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations, but I’ll happily play it in green decks that are trying to play a little lighter on lands. Temur Sabertooth might look like a head-scratcher, and honestly it’s a pretty weak card, but the idea is it can return Eternal Witness to your hand to take infinite turns with Time Warp. I don’t think I’d play it just because I had those two cards which I would obviously play, but that’s a thing that you can do.
Green ramp coupled with adequate haymakers and ways to generate card advantage still looks like one of the best things to get up to in Modern Cube, and that’s a strategy I would aim to employ often while drafting.
Gold
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More quality-of-life improvements here, with a general emphasis on increasing power level and adding some key combo cards as well. Fallen Shinobi and Valki, God of Lies are the two cards on the outs for being some combination of too powerful and not fun, though I am a little sad to see Valki leaving as Bring to Light enters if we’re trying to offer degenerate things that are legal and played in Modern Constructed.
A lot of these cards speak for themselves, and I’m most curious where Galvanic Iteration will fall in this Cube. I was one of the few players who actively enjoyed playing the card alongside Alrund’s Epiphany in Standard when you were allowed to do so, though having a decent volume of spells that you actively wanted to copy was significant for these decks. Copying Unexpected Windfall was a very common play to set you up for future turns, and it looks like it’s kind of Time Warp or bust for real payoffs in this Cube. Copying a removal spell or a draw spell are both fine, though not necessarily better than discarding the card for value. I’ll give the card a chance, but I’m not expecting it to live up to the power ceiling that we saw the card reach in Standard.
Artifacts
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The reintroduction of Mind Stone is the big story here, with fast mana being a little more supported in this update as the power level of the Cube increases. Blasting Station is also a serviceable sacrifice outlet for when you miss on Goblin Bombardment.
Mimic Vat is definitely a more fun card than Unlicensed Hearse in Cube, and it has interactions that make it more powerful in some contexts as well. I kind of hate Unlicensed Hearse as a Cube card, but it also makes sense to give the new cards some time to see how well players like them and how they perform.
Lands
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I’m a bit hesitant to play a bounceland alongside so many other great lands that enter the battlefield tapped, but I do like the nod to the fact that bouncelands have showed up in Constructed Modern quite a lot! Okay, they’ve done so in exactly Amulet Titan, but still.
More than that, the removal of the Pathways and reintroduction of fastlands is a combination of a power level increase and a quality of life improvement. Triome fans get their day as well. I also love using most of the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms creature-lands, and specifically excluding Cave of the Frost Dragon for being horrible. I’d prefer to see Lair of the Hydra over Boseiju, Who Endures, though, as Boseiju is more of a card you play because it’s free, whereas Lair of the Hydra is actively powerful to open a game on.
On balance, I’m a fan of this update. The Cube is moving in a more cohesive direction, and I’m excited to see where things go from here. I’m a bit wary of decks that go hard on generating extra mana and taking extra turns, but what else is new? A ton of cards were changed in this update, and it’s nearly impossible to do that without changing a bunch more cards after seeing how the new format shakes out. I’ve got a big pot of soup on, and I’m ready to explore.
