Shoutout Eric for helping me make these changes

Dear (theoretical) readers, the time has come once again for me to radically change the cube and all of its requisite parts. This update was not originally intended to be a 3.0, but now that everything is said and done, I think the changes warrant a new version. The update includes many changes to color balance and some changes to specific archetypes. While things probably aren't balanced right now, the cube will continue changing. Below are more specifics on the updates.

Right off the bat, I think it's important to address the changes in the framework of my design philosophy. While I do want the environment to focus on synergy, I think managing expectations is important. People are going to draft to win, and that won't always mean playing something like simic ramp. As such, while I do still want to push synergy, I also want to build the cube into an environment that will be healthy and fun regardless of how people want to play it.

While I understand that every card can't be a p1p1 that you always include (and indeed, if they were it would be quite the boring environment), the cube had quite a few cards that were never good. Be honest: when's the last time you even considered taking a Disenchant or a Flameshadow Conjuring? Cards like these always rode the sideboard, and honestly, there are things that are more interesting to play.

Another issue is that the colors are WILDLY out of balance. At the time of writing, our last draft had five different players who were playing blue in some capacity, and only two in green. This problem honestly isn't anything new, but I decided it's about time to try and address it. I understand that draft is self-correcting, but I still feel like green's lack of representation can't stem entirely from bias in blue's favor. Furthermore, the green decks that were played underperformed, which should absolutely not be the case if the color was so open.

Other than specific colors, I cut a lot of the outliers that I knew would be outliers. To start with the underperformers, many of the worst cards in this category came in cycles. For example, the hideaway lands almost never met their conditions, leading to essentially drawing a tapped single-color land. I've swapped them out almost entirely for the single-color creature lands from AFR. Another cycle of terrible cards is the animation, fabrication, and decoction module combo, which has not been assembled once. Unlike the thopter/sword combo (which I'll address later), this combo was basically impossible to assemble in a match, and normally would just lead to three dead draws or cards in hand. Each of the three has been swapped out for a card that will hopefully be healthier for the environment.

While there were some underpowered outliers, the opposite was definitely also true. Hymn to Tourach was always an "it would be funny" but not really a "this would be a healthy card to have in the cube." Similarly, some of the Origins planeswalkers were very strong (looking at you, Liliana) and, as such, have had to say goodbye. Last but most certainly not least, the time has come for me to sunset thopter/sword from the cube (sorry Zach). While it wasn't the easiest to assemble due to a lack of tutors, the combo was difficult to interact with, and often turned an unwinnable game into an unlosable one, leading to feel-bad moments. While there may be some more combos in the future, they may be more creature-based unless the cube takes a turn toward artifacts in the future.

Speaking of artifacts, boosting artifact counts and play patterns is definitely something I want to work on in the future. However, this would require cutting cards from each color category, and as such may be something for a 4.0 update or something along those lines. Now, to get into more specifics...

White

White honestly didn't see a whole lot of changes. The long and short of it is that some duds swapped out for better cards or synergy pieces, such as Enduring Bondwarden for Abzan Battle Priest. Other than that, I've also removed Felidar Retreat, but added Path to Exile, which will probably serve as a similar power outlier.

Blue

Oh, blue. Where do I begin? It should be no surprise to anyone who's drafted the cube that blue has been very strong for a very long time. As such, in this update, I've decided to nuke it into the ground reel it in a little bit. I'll go into this more in the archetype-specific section, but the basis is that blue is having a lot of its generic good stuff downgraded. One part of the color that contributed to its strength was its powerful control pieces like Memory Lapse, which I've replaced with Hinder. These changes, along with removing some of the stronger generically good cards like Cryptic Coat and Looter il-Kor, will hopefully lead to some more balanced gameplay, though I suspect that blue will need some buffs in the near future.

Black

Something I've noticed recently is that black is plagued by the good stuff/duds dynamic. The removal is both cheap and fairly flexible, and while hymn to tourach was more of an "it would be funny" test addition, things like Noxious Gearhulk have begun to overstay their welcome. On the other hand, cards like Warehouse Tabby and Liliana's Elite were fringe playable at best, and always cut at worst. Thus, while black had less sweeping cuts, the cuts that were made should hopefully be noticeable once the draft comes around.

Red

Red's problems were honestly pretty unique. A lot of its issues stemmed from its high synergy with blue, which I'll get into more in the archetype section. Other than that, there were also more cases of feast or famine. This is why cards like Fiery Confluence are being cut alongside things like Act of Treason.

Green

Green's changes are also kinda random-seeming. The general goal was to bring up the power of what was far and above the least-played color and archetypes. Part of this included cutting a lot of chaff, with notable names including Hunter's Insight and Retreat to Kazandu. I also cut Invasion of Zendikar because it had an annoying play pattern with the double sleeves. Vintage cube enthusiasts will be pleased to hear about the addition of staples like Lotus Cobra and Once Upon a Time, as well as some other bangers that you'll see when you next draft.

While not every archetype saw sweeping changes (I feel like orzhov is in a good place rn, for example), most color pairs got at least some changes. Reanimator, for example, got some upgrades to its targets, but hopefully will also benefit from the aforementioned green changes. Honestly, the long and short of this section is that all the green archetypes will hopefully be more viable, perhaps at the cost of synergy. Another notable general change is that I've cut sleeper bomb Migratory Route, which was basically just never bad. For more specific archetypes:

Simic Ramp

The signposts for Simic were in a funny place. While no one ever wants to play Bounty of the Luxa, The Goose Mother would be played as a splash in nearly every draft. Simic's new signposts, such as HOU all-star River Hoopoe, will hopefully encourage drafters to actually play Simic rather than taking its requisite parts for decks in other colors.

Dimir Evasion

Honestly, at this point, it's basically just dimir ninjas, but whatever. Baleful Strix was an issue and needed to go, and no one ever wanted to play Mask of Riddles for a good reason. Also, some of the evasion payoffs (see: ninjas) have been upgraded, and while I still think shadow is cringe, I believe that something like Dauthi Jackal is less problematic than like a Looter il-Kor.

Izzet Wizards

The last archetype that recieved major changes was izzet wizards. As those who have drafted the cube know, this archetype was WAY too strong, and also, ironically, the only one that was super synergy-heavy. While past transgressors like Archmage of Echoes are long gone, cards like Harmonic Prodigy have continued to be extremely problematic. Thus, while the changes to this archetype didn't come in the form of signposts, the individual cards in each color have (hopefully) been brought more in line with the power level of the other archetypes.

Well, that's all from me!! There are some additions in this patch that certainly fit the "it would be funny bill," so be sure to look out for them when it's time to draft. Otherwise, it may be about time to finally update the cube's primer, as I don't think I've changed it since 1.0 and I'm already in the writing mood. Happy cubing!!

Cube balance, brick by brick.

V2.0 is here!! This one follows the first full draft of the cube and tries to incorporate much of the feedback that I received, as well as some from the team draft over the summer. After this, I'm going to try to make changes at a much slower rate, as editing the cube based off of one draft doesn't really work off of significant data. These changes fall into a few categories.

While this was not really something that people have been complaining about, it is a change that I've been meaning to make in a while. I honestly don't mind having a bunch of tapped duals in the cube, especially as the format begins to establish itself as on the slower side. Regardless, I wanted to make some of the land options more interesting, so in this update, I'm swapping out the scry lands for surveil lands, and creature and fast lands for the normal tapped lands. Fast lands may come back out in the future if they affect the format in an unhealthy way.

While I certainly won't be adding anything game-breaking like Underworld Breach or Brain freeze, I did want to try adding in some more minor combos. Namely, the Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek combo and the Animation Module, Decoction Module, and Fabrication Module combos. These are pretty tentative, and if they end up being too strong or too weak, they'll likely be removed in a future update.

One of the most common pieces of feedback that I've recieved is that the Enchantments archetype is pretty weak when compared to some others. One thing that I'm trying to remedy this is to make the signposts both a stronger reason to be in the colors and more cohesive for the gameplan. For example, Neva, Stalked by Nightmares and Kaya's Wrath are swapping out for Profane Procession and Blood-Cursed Knight respectively. I don't have a lot more cards that will increase synergy at the mono-color level, but hopefully this will be a step in the right direction.

Another change that I'm making this update is removing some of the stronger outliers (hello Hogaak). This mostly will be affecting black and green, but there was somethign for every color. There is a chance that this will make it too hard to be in reanimator, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. With the speed of the format, I found that players were often hardcasting reanimation targets. While this is not inherently a bad thing, many of the targets essentially mean that the game ends then and there (such as Giant Adephage). I will definitely be on the lookout for feedback regarding this change in the next few drafts.

Card Quality

This is more of a minor change, but I've tried to raise the floor on general card quality in white and black. This will hopefully make them more viable while still preserving synergy. Furthermore, I've swapped out some of the weaker synergy pieces for archetypes like madness.

As always, I'm open to any feedback on these changes or the environment as a whole.

is being changed from allies to aggro! More details to come in the full 2.0 update post, but the long and short of it is that allies was far too narrow, and as such reduced optionality in the draft environment as a whole. Hopefully with these changes, drafters will feel like they have a wider range of choices.

A quick little update after the cube was drafted for the first time! Narrowing down the power band a little bit by getting rid of some of the more egregious outliers and unplayables.

R.I.P. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Bola Slinger

AKA "The Fixing Update."

This update has two primary goals. The first is to cut down to a size of 360 and focus on high consistency. The second is to fix a lot of the initial problems with the cube, which mainly fit into four categories:

1. Fixing: To put it bluntly, the cube doesn't have much fixing. Specifically, this took the form of 10 tapped duals or 2.4% fixing. This is horrendously low. In this update, I'm adding 30 duals, consisting of 10 gain lands, tenten scry lands, and ten guildgates. This will bring the new ratio to ~11%, which is much better than before.
2. Dirt: The cube unintentionally had many cards that would seldom be taken out of the sideboard, let alone played. As such, many of these cards have either been swapped out for better ones or cut out entirely.
3. Curve: the curve wasn't great as it stood. There were a lot more cards that were both highly situational and expensive cmc-wise, leading to a lot of dead cards early on in the draft. This update aims to transform the overall curve of the cube to a bell curve with a peak of around three mana.
4. Synergy: Paradoxically, while each color pair had six to seven gold cards, there was not much payoff to pull you to drafting a particular archetype. Therefore, I've cut each color pair down to three gold cards and a dual-cost card (e.g., Imodane's Recruiter). This should mean that more cards per draft can fit in various decks rather than being restrictive or requiring splashing.

As previously mentioned (and hinted at in the primer), one goal of the cube is to have a variety of exciting archetypes. While some of them still need work, many have completely changed from what they were before. The new archetypes are as follows:

Boros(): Allies
The new Boros archetype focuses on allies and ally payoffs, with Angelic Captain, Munda, Ambush Leader, and Resolute Blademaster as the new signposts. It wants you to have an aggressive game plan that lets you go wide with allies and tap them down for value.

Rakdos(): Hellbent/Madness
The new archetype for Rakdos wants you to discard your cards for value with mechanics like Hellbent and Madness. Cards like Anje Falkenrath, Anthem of Rakdos, and Terminal Agony serve as payoffs for emptying your hand, while Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve allow you to keep access to your resources. Rakdos wants to move fast, quickly emptying your hand and ending the game.

Izzet(): Wizards
Not to be confused with the "of the Coast" variety, the new Izzet archetype gives payoffs for having a lot of wizards in your deck. Kaza, Roil Chaser, Flame of Anor, and Goblin Electromancer all provide value for packing your deck full of wizards. While there is still a spellslinger subtheme, this approach to the archetype is more focused than before.

While some color pairs have the same general archetype, those that do have gone through changes to make them more appealing.

Azorius(), Gruul(), Simic()
No notes. These are the archetypes that I feel we're already in a pretty good place, and while there will be some changes internally to increase consistency, the general ideas will remain the same.

Selesnya()
Selesnya had the issue of value with no payoffs, which is a bigger problem than it might seem. Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar, Arcus Acolyte, and Juniper Order Ranger either provide counters or benefit you for having counters on your creatures already. These new signposts should help pull drafters towards the color pair.

Orzhov()
Orzhov had a similar issue to Selesnya where there weren't a lot of payoffs. Furthermore, the enchantments were few and far between and didn't really have a huge benefit. While the signposts remain mostly unchanged, the payoffs and value have improved significantly.

Golgari()
Golgari had the issue that its game plan does not work. There weren't enough reanimation spells or reanimation targets, making it a complete no-go for drafting. Old Stickfingers, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, and Rise of the Witch-King are the new signposts that benefit directly from having cards in your yard or help you to get them there. Furthermore, the reanimation package has been completely revamped, so the game plan should be more consistent. Pretty much just bring back your big stuff at a cost and use it to win.

Dimir()
I had already written up changes for DDimir in the above section of the post and was removing the old cards when I changed my mind. Even though it's a little rough as it stands, I believe that the base is good, and as such, the changes for Dimir in this update focus on really making the evasion feel consistent and paying you off for it.

Removal
Most of the removal was too conditional, and wasn't represented evenly between colors. There is now more thematic removal and enough general removal to go around.

Colorless Cards
ALL equipment has been cut, as have the colorless cards that don't serve an express purpose. Most of these cards were dirt anyways.

Planeswalkers
ALL Planeswalkers have been cut as well. They were thrown in there for the sake of being in the cube and aren't helping to push forward any specific gameplan. They may come back in the future, but for now, they're out completely.

More archetypes are subject to change, but I feel they're in a good place for now. More tweaks will be made after the cube has actually been drafted, but it'll be a while until there's another update as big as this one.

I may revert the changes to the Rakdos archetype based on reception, but for now, it is what it is.

There's also probably going to be a second post because it's hard to make tweaks without seeing the changes reflected.

That's all for this update. Version 1.1 is probably coming soon, but who knows?

I now realize that I’ve messed up the Rakdos archetype but I’ll fix that later ig (red focuses on madness when it should focus on fodder).