Howdy, gamers! I hope you like Vintage Cube, because it’s time for another three-week run on Magic Online (MTGO). The Spring update gives us some more clarity on what “packages” rotation will look like, as a handful of archetypes cycle in and out of the Cube. I’m here to break this update down and offer insights on how I would go about drafting this environment.
A good starting point is, as always, Chris Wolf’s breakdown on The Mothership. Here we see that heavy Storm, Lands, and artifact support are exiting the Cube, while Dredge, Madness, “Power Matters”, and Splinter Twin Combo make their return. Wolf also outlines an Azorius Flash archetype, but let’s be real, that one is just good blue and white cards and nothing markedly different from what is always in the Cube.
The breakdown mentions a desire to present these updates in a more digestible way in the future, but for now I’m relying on my usual port to Cube Cobra. Now let’s break down the Cube by color to see how these shifts impact the Draft environment!
White
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A lot of these changes are replacement-level swaps, and things are mostly business as usual for white. It is a bit funny to me to reintroduce Ranger-Captain of Eos while cutting support for Storm, but it is just a generally strong card on rate. The most significant cut here is Lion Sash, which I would prefer to see hold more of a staple status as a Stoneforge Mystic find that helps push back against graveyard strategies. At the very least, the card is much more powerful than Sungold Sentinel in every meaningful way for high-power environments.
Benevolent Bodyguard might look like a weird one, but I’m pretty fond of this addition. It’s definitely a weaker card than Mother of Runes, but my personal pick order puts it above Giver of Runes. When you consider the play pattern of these sorts of cards defending against removal spells, Benevolent Bodyguard is basically Giver of Runes with haste. That said, it is much worse at helping you block and punching through blockers if that’s all that concerns you.
I’m not really a believer in Oliphaunt, so I extend that disbelief to Eagles of the North, but I will reluctantly play these cards when I have a fetchable dual and my mana is otherwise bad. There’s more robust support for Living Death in this iteration, so that’s something to note, but I’ll caution that, while the card is categorically messed up, it is something of a middle-of-the-pack card for Vintage Cube.
On balance, white looks about as good as it always is in Vintage Cube, with Boros Aggro and Azorius Control being the most supported archetypes for consistent success.
Blue
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Fact or Fiction is just more powerful in Cube than Paradoxical Outcome, so I love that swap, especially with Hullbreacher and Orcish Bowmasters running around. The return of Venser, Shaper Savant coming in over Snap also moves us in the direction of blue having a higher volume of generically powerful cards. Mental Note pushes us back some in the other direction, but Ethereal Forager is a hot one that has much more useful text than Murktide Regent here.
Cryptic Coat is a fun one to Stoneforge Mystic for that does something of a True-Name Nemesis impression. It’s a very fair card relative to what’s going on in Vintage Cube broadly, but it will be useful for overpowering players who fall into drafting more midrange decks.
I don’t find Splinter Twin an especially consistent or powerful thing to draft in Vintage Cube, but the Splinter Twin lobby should be delighted at the combo’s return. I’m also not much on Treasure Cruise in Vintage Cube when there are some many other ways to generate card advantage that don’t involve working nearly as hard, but once you’re in blue for a “Dredge” style deck I can be convinced to pick up the card later in the draft. I also find Careful Study to be generally weaker than Chart a Course, but it is a faster tool for Reanimator decks with higher ceilings for Hollow One and Vengevine as well.
The changes to blue leave me most interested in just drafting generically powerful blue cards and not relying on any of the new synergies. It looks like it will be much more difficult to draft an artifacts-matter deck with this update, with Thopter Sword actually being the most significant pair of cards on the outs for those decks. All of this makes me more inclined to look to play a second or third color in my blue decks, which is where most drafters tend to land anyway.
Black
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A consistent issue of the curation of the black column of this Cube is that some number of appealing and powerful cards always seem to be on the outs while many of the weakest cards in the Cube remain at large. I’m a bigger detractor of Imperial Seal than most, but it doesn’t make sense to me to have junk like Cut Down and Rankle, Master of Pranks hanging around while some very Vintage-feeling and absolutely more powerful cards cycle out.
The much louder cut is Bolas’s Citadel, which is just the best thing to Tinker for regardless of whether you’ve drafted a Storm deck. If you want to cycle through these cards, that’s fine, but at least cycle in cards that are just on the outs on power level when you do instead of keeping a handful of slots that are firmly below replacement level. Give me Yawgmoth’s Bargain to combo with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse! Give me something! I don’t mind Imperial Seal leaving, but I do mind it when I look at the greater context of the Cube and see a handful of cards that I would avoid drafting if I can help it at all.
All right, back to drafting the Cube as it exists. Tendrils of Agony is out and Shadowgrange Archfiend and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis support are in. I haven’t played with Shadowgrange Archfiend because it read rather over rate for Spooky Cube, and it looks like a very strong creature to cheat in when you activate your Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy here, notably always tagging your opponent’s largest creature. More importantly, Reanimator hasn’t gone anywhere, and that’s going to be the actual best black deck as always. The best versions of the Dredge and Madness decks will be able to put Archon of Cruelty or Griselbrand onto the battlefield some amount of the time, and Entomb remains among black’s most powerful cards.
The best black cards are still the whole draw to the color, and Tortured Existence is still a fringe card for Pauper.
Red
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Most of the cards on the outs here are incredibly replaceable, though I am personally aggrieved by the absence of Seething Song and I couldn’t disagree more with cutting Glorybringer over Goldspan Dragon. It’s worth noting that Phyrexian Dragon Engine is quite strong in Madness decks, though it’s definitely not an essential piece. Reckless Charge and Monstrous Rage are about to be the last pick in a lot of packs, but the other cards on the way in here are mostly good.
The madness creatures are solid if you can actually draft a Madness deck, which will either involve a ton of the right moving parts or specifically Survival of the Fittest with a good spread of the zero-mana madness creatures and stuff like Hogaak, Vengevine, and Anger to get your opponent dead quickly. I imagine Avacyn’s Judgment got the nod for being more generally castable, but it would have been cool to see Violent Eruption here to really push the theme, especially over something like Delayed Blast Fireball which has been, generously, awkward in the Cube to this point.
The most significant additions here are the most abstractly powerful cards in Headliner Scarlett and Goblin Bombardment. Just good cards that do things that generate value and push through damage to close games. Dreadhorde Arcanist was quite weak last time that we saw it in the Cube, and I’m unconvinced that pump spells, a generally weak category of card, will help much in a powered Cube. I do like Khenra Spellspear and Fugitive Codebreaker, but I’ll be looking to play them in ordinary-looking red aggressive decks with other cheap creatures and burn.
An odd note was left in the update regarding Demand Answers and Shrapnel Blast. The write-up suggests that there is some necessary volume of support needed to “answer” your own The One Ring or Coveted Jewel. No such effects are necessary for this purpose in a high-powered Cube. These cards enable you to answer your opponent. Playing a Shrapnel Blast or Demand Answers with the idea of sacrificing these cards is something you should only do if your deck is a complete and utter disaster.
Green
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I mostly like and understand the cuts to green, though there are a couple of eyebrow-raisers. The one that I feel most compelled to go to bat for is Courser of Kruphix, which I see as one of the fundamental cards to making green ramp decks tick. It is true that it has become somewhat redundant with Augur of Autumn, but when I want one, I want both. Courser is also significant in the necessary swath of cards to make Fastbond actually playable, and there’s no way that I would sign off on Wrenn and Realmbreaker over it.
Fauna Shaman is quite fragile and slow, so I would pick it late even if I’m trying to Vengevine, which is another card that nobody wants and that you should pick late. Most notable in these considerations is that it is very unlikely that the table can support two drafters for these archetypes. The recipe for success with Basking Rootwalla will most commonly be getting Survival of the Fittest early and nobody having any reason to compete with you over cards for the Survival deck.
I don’t have a lot of faith in Hooting Mandrills or any of the pump spell stuff. Berserk was a card that I really, really wanted to make work in the Tempo Twobert, but it was just terrible always. That’s an environment where you’re forced to play an aggressively slanted creature deck, and Berserk is a much harder sell in a Cube with both dedicated control decks and more resilient ways to win games. It is cool as hell, but you should expect to wheel it if you can convince yourself to play it.
It’s funny to me to see Blossoming Tortoise as well as Life from the Loam entering the Cube as the heavy lands package phases out, but the Tortoise is a sweet card and the infinitely large Lavaclaw Reaches combo is pretty rad.
Losing Manglehorn is certainly a blow to green, and to the extent that Fyndhorn Elves lends more redundancy and power to the ramp decks, it is entering along with Lava Dart and at a time when the Cube has otherwise been more hostile to cheap creatures than it’s ever been. I’m not an optimistic ramp drafter in this Cube these days, but the Survival stuff could be real and the splashable green cards can offer a lot to blue decks.
Gold
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Once again, we see a lot of churn of many lower-powered cards in the Cube here. The only cut that I really don’t like is Ertai Resurrected, which I’ve been valuing quite highly in all of my Dimir/X decks and seems like a contributor to the alleged Flash archetype…
Hogaak is strong, but it requires a lot of work to make it function. Just like I said about Survival of the Fittest, you really can’t fight anyone over Hogaak cards You’ll need to be scooping up Stitcher’s Supplier late to really make the deck work. Amusingly, Deathrite Shaman will only actually be good in these decks, as the card has been a consistent underperformer in these types of Cubes as a standalone card. Once you’re reliably milling your own lands though, it can be a consistent mana source and a great option to convoke out your Hogaak!
I’m really glad to see Leovold, Emissary of Trest returning, though admittedly I would prefer to also see Hullbreacher go. It’s getting mighty difficult to draw extra cards here! This was a very negative aspect of the recent run of Supreme Draft, though I could never stay mad at Leovold, whom you do have to work a little harder to cast.
Raffine, Scheming Seer, on the other hand, is a very strange choice. There’s nothing in line with what a Vintage Cube Esper deck would like happening on this card, which makes it an incredibly restrictive option as a three-color card. It’s a graveyard card of sorts, but it is in the wrong colors! Expect to see it and Unruly Krasis go late often.
Carnage Interpreter is a really cool addition that I see as a strong fit in the Madness decks, though you will want to be careful to use it after you’ve already churned through your hand otherwise, which makes prioritizing when to draft and play the card fun puzzles. I expect that the card will be most successful in low-to-the-ground aggressive red decks not doing anything particularly fancy with it, just evoking Fury and casting a 5/5 that can slowly draw cards if needed.
Colorless
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The colorless swaps are mostly late picks, with the return of Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger for creature cheat decks being the biggest deal. There’s a lot going on with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron as well, though it’s been mostly a sideboard card with random cool applications in my experience with the card in high-power Cubes.
Altar of Dementia was a staple of the Hogaak deck that was banned out of Modern, though it’s really specific and not clearly a useful option for these decks in Cube. It does take much less power to mill a 40-card deck, but this is a card that at most one player at the table will want. I would value it lowly if at all.
Lands
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Field of the Dead is pretty tame for Vintage Cube, though its removal does notably push Primeval Titan back to being generally undesirable. I’m a fan of Bazaar of Baghdad returning, even if it often disappoints in Cube relative to its Constructed pedigree. It’ll be great to have in robust Survival of the Fittest decks.
The surveil lands are another nice addition, and if you can keep things to two colors, they are much better lands to fetch for than Triomes. Some of the lands that they’re being added over are strange, though. I would have expected at least Undercity Sewers to be coming in over Sunken Ruins in the last update, and keeping that filterland and adding another in Cascade Bluffs over their respective fastlands is a definite downgrade for these color pairs. You can point to extreme cases of having triple-cost cards in two colors as times when filterlands can help staple your deck together, but a fastland will be good in every two-color deck. If you’re really concerned about casting Kiki-Jiki in your Cryptic Command deck, then I would offer that the Cube would get more mileage out of Seething Song and Manamorphose than suboptimal mana-fixing lands.
Despite some rough edges, I am optimistic about how this implementation of the packages concept will play. At the very least, I love seeing Survival of the Fittest pushed to its extreme, and we’ll find out if it can hang! The power-matters stuff is a complete miss for me, but there’s enough going on in this update to make me believe we’ll see better updates over time. For my money, I prefer pushing Vintage Cubes to their extreme limits, but a little experimentation can be fun, too. I’ll see you in the queues!
