When I checked the Magic Online (MTGO) event schedule, I was surprised but no less excited to see Vintage Cube coming back to us this week for a four-week run. In addition to the expected Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty updates, Carmen Handy also gifted us a lengthy change log that introduces some bigger shake-ups to the Cube. You can find her write-up on this update here.
I’ve gone ahead and imported the new Cube list to Cube Cobra for ease of understanding as well. A significant chunk of the updates to the Cube trim on redundancies to add support for previously unsupported or under-supported archetypes in the Cube, which I love seeing. I’ll admit that there are a couple of head-scratchers in the spread, but I’m a fan of a lot of what’s going on here. Let’s take a look at the updates to the Cube by color.
White
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Pour one out for Kytheon, Hero of Akros, as another great aggressive one-drop bites the dust, but the shift to Esper Sentinel is reasonable. I’d rather have both or just Kytheon, but I’m confident that Esper Sentinel is a crowd-pleaser and more interesting card.
Other than that, we see the removal of a lot of inefficient and uninteresting cards. Among the cuts, the only card I’m a little sad to see go is Seasoned Hallowblade, but the card is so similar to and worse than Adanto Vanguard that I won’t lose sleep over it. Lion Sash is also just a massive upgrade there anyway.
Ephemerate is another fan favorite that’s unlikely to make my decks, but one that you’ll want to try to play around when engaging with creatures with enters-the-battlefield abilities. Andrea Mengucci will enjoy this one. Blinking an evoked Solitude has some serious blowout potential, but for my money, I’m just happy to have the Solitude and consider the Ephemerate excessive.
These changes don’t significantly impact white’s place as a color in the Cube, and I’d still expect Mono-White Aggro and Azorius Control to be the most significant white archetypes.
Blue
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Three of the four cuts here are utterly replaceable. Inspired Idea didn’t get there, Control Magic almost never makes my decks these days with the myriad of better fours and Treachery completely outclassing it, and Torrential Gearhulk asks too much and offers too little. Riftwing Cloudskate will be missed, even if it doesn’t look like much. That little Illusion always made my deck and put in an honest day’s work.
As for the new additions, Gilded Drake is the only card that I’m completely skeptical of. It’s cheaper than Control Magic though, so it’s probably not a full downgrade, and the card that it’s replacing stinks anyway.
Thassa’s Oracle doesn’t make my decks often, but it is a card that a lot of players like and is a meaningful addition to the “Brain Freeze myself” strategy. Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant is less meaningful, but is another one of those good Reanimator targets that is otherwise castable. Ultimately, I expect Jin-Gitaxias to live in Hullbreaker Horror’s shadow for as long as both are in the Cube.
Murktide Regent was a card that I gave a serious look when we did our Modern Horizons 2 Cube review on The 540, and after months of being a house in Constructed and performing great in my paper Cube drafts, I’m happy to see the card getting its due. As a blue finisher in Cube, the card is everything that Delver of Secrets wishes it was.
With these changes, blue will continue to be the most powerful color in the Cube.
Black
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Black is seeing a lot of changes with this update, and I think that trimming on redundancies for Reanimator and Storm does a lot to increase black’s appeal in the Cube broadly. Dark Petition was just a bad Demonic Tutor that you could only play in Storm. Corpse Dance was a neat spin on a reanimation spell, but the Cube is so long on those effects that trimming at least one makes sense. Sheoldred hasn’t been good enough to play in the best Reanimator decks for years. I’m a big fan of making the call to trim these effects when the Cube has so much stuff that is similar and better.
That said, I’m not fully confident in all the new additions. Vampire Hexmage will stick around and show up as long as Dark Depths is in the Cube. Dauthi Voidwalker is another card that has a significant fan base, but I’m skeptical of Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion with the way the spread of one-drops look in the Cube. I would also say that Kitesail Freebooter was one of the better black cards in the Cube to make Ninjas work, and Mesmeric Fiend is a significant downgrade there, even if it’s cute with sacrifice outlets. Custodi Lich is also a pretty big miss for me relative to Liliana, Death’s Majesty, but I’m sure I’ll be giving the card its due. Perhaps being the monarch is worth five mana despite the card’s otherwise weak stats and ability.
Snuff Out is awesome, and Braids, Cabal Minion was a card that I always happily played in my black decks before it was previously removed from the Cube. Braids gives off specific prison archetype vibes, but I assure you, the fact that your opponent has to sacrifice a permanent first makes the card excellent, even when you’re not exploiting any particular synergies.
I’m assuming that Bone Shards was cut for being mostly a Reanimator card without offering enough otherwise, but it’s very odd to see Bloodghast and Skyclave Shade entering the Cube as Bone Shards exits. This isn’t a huge deal, but Bone Shards felt very appropriate in Vintage Cube to me, and it’s one that I’ll miss. Bloodghast and Skyclave Shade are also mostly beatdown cards in a Cube without a ton of support for black aggressive decks, so every little synergy counts.
On balance, I’d say that these changes increase black’s relative power level in the Cube with more cards that you can play more often, though there’s some confusion in the ranks regarding if and how all the pieces fit into the Cube environment.
Red
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Flame Spill was among the weakest cards previously in the Cube, and I’m really happy to see it go. In fact, all of these cuts are just replaceable “good” cards, with Glorybringer and Den of the Bugbear being the two that I could make an argument for keeping in the Cube.
Most of the additions to red are awesome. Bonecrusher Giant, Goblin Bombardment, Fury, and Underworld Breach are just a cast of all-time greats that will meaningfully make decks. I will absolutely be forcing Storm more often with Underworld Breach’s return, and have wanted to see it come back for a long time.
Dockside Extortionist and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker are somewhat more volatile elements, with the former being a high-variance card and the latter being something that I need more experience playing with myself. I’m cautiously optimistic about both.
Red Elemental Blast is a little whatever, but it’s a fine sideboard card that’s properly emblematic of Vintage Constructed. I’ve been a fan of the card in color-restricted Cubes, but it is just a dud against a lot of Vintage Cube decks. Jokulhaups, on the other hand, I’m actively excited for. It’s kind of like Balance, except it destroys artifacts, which will more easily leave your opponent without mana or any meaningful way to recover. I fully intend to try some Jokulhaups plus planeswalkers decks. Destructive Force is mostly a worse Wildfire for costing an additional mana and I don’t expect its time in the Cube to last, but Jokulhaups rules.
Adding Goblin Bombardment and further support for a sacrifice theme is something that I’ve wanted to see in this Cube for a while, so I’m happy to see the powerful enchantment making the cut. I will say that while there are some good synergies for the card to work with, I find it very odd to see Lingering Souls leaving the Cube in the same update that Bombardment is being added. I’m not confident that the card will perform in this specific iteration, but I do hope it sticks around and additional changes are made to better facilitate a sacrifice theme.
The changes to red didn’t add much to red aggressive decks, which is something that I typically lament in these articles, but the non-aggressive red decks gained a lot here and this does raise red’s stock as a color.
Green
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Biogenic Ooze, Court of Bounty, and Wall of Blossoms are all cards that I enjoy, but I would happily lose out on several additional personal favorites to see Gilded Goose go. Good riddance.
Much of the additions to green are to facilitate the lands matter archetype and to help assemble Marit Lage combo, which we saw in the Alt-Vintage Cube. Life from the Loam has underperformed every time I’ve tried it in Cube, but with Fastbond, Strip Mine, and now Boseiju, Who Endures to try to use the card to lock your opponent out, it might work out here.
Endurance is a powerful safety valve against Reanimator, with unfortunate collateral damage to my darling Underworld Breach. It’s a powerful addition in the fight of fair versus unfair. Pest Infestation is another powerful fair addition. Any green deck should maindeck it with the volume of busted artifacts and enchantments in the Cube.
These changes absolutely increase the relative strength of green, and Primeval Titan is easily the most improved card that was already in the Cube in relation to the changes. The lands matter archetype far exceeded my expectations in the Alt-Vintage Cube, and I expect it to be a force here as well.
Gold
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Most of the cuts here are replaceable or bad, with Dragonlord Atarka being playable and Lingering Souls being a cut that I find myself strongly disagreeing with. I don’t expect to play with Spirit-Sister’s Call or even remember what it does, and I hope to see those cards swapped in the future. Most of the cards making their way in are great or at least playable, though, so I mostly like the changes to this section.
Specifically, getting Leovold back in and cutting Tasigur is very welcome, considering that Leovold is great and Tasigur may never have been playable in this Cube. Escape to the Wilds is another huge win, not only as a card that makes sense for the lands matter archetype, but just as a powerful card that incentivizes playing with Taiga.
Artifacts
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I have no strong feelings about Eater of Virtue one way or the other, but all the cards being cut here are replacement-level or worse. Similar to the changes in black, Kozilek one of the worst versions of a type of card that the Cube is long on. As much as it pains me to say it, Solemn Simulacrum just isn’t what it used to be, and weirdly Stonecoil Serpent was the only one of the three cuts that regularly made my decks. Not that I was often excited about the card, just that it tended to fit in any deck fine.
Retrofitter Foundry is excellent. It’s one of the best cards to find with Urza’s Saga in Cube, and it’s a very welcome addition to any deck with a sacrifice theme and/or a Skullclamp. It’s easily an improvement over Stonecoil Serpent everywhere that I played that card.
Lands
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I, more or less, considered Nykthos to be a green card and a much worse version of Gaea’s Cradle in this Cube, and it’s a very reasonable cut. Beyond that, to the extent that I played and would play any of these creature-lands, they’re all definitely worse than Horizon lands.
Field of the Dead and Dark Depths combo are two awesome things to find with Primeval Titan, and there’s enough reason to justify either or both in decks without the card as well. Dark Depths combo worked out surprisingly often when I saw it in action in the Alt-Vintage Cube, and these changes are solid.
With a few exceptions, I really like the look of this update. More than that, it’s great to see Carmen willing to make such significant changes to the Cube. I employ pretty active curation with my Cubes and part of what I enjoy about Cube is navigating the impact of changes to a closed system, so it’s awesome to see more than just some new cards being added every set release. I’m looking forward to this month of Vintage Cubing.
