They real now

The economy is in shambles. Everything costs more. Even Kings. Especially Kings. And the Kings are getting better (read 'worse'). They do so much. Maybe too much. Maybe it's cruel to mix the modern cards with all these premodern cabbages. Of course it is! That's the whole point, a terrible critique of the wealth gap in late stage capitalism.

Who dares to take the moral low ground and cast these power-crept monsters against your friends? Your friends? Not for long.

It's not fair. Life's not fair. This game isn't fair.

however... oooh to somehow win against these impossible odds...what would you need? How would you do it?

In the distant future, all the buildings will be small hills. The streets will be creeks. The blocks will be mesas. Mostly where downtown is, the old solid rock courthouses lasting longer than the steel and glass skyscrapers. The suburbs disappear first, and entirely. An effect of the optimization of capitalism is to make the houses more hollow, thinner, like egg shells, which of course disappear first in geologic time.

Blood Moon adds thousands of years to the planet. The creatures all time travel, into a world of mountains. Small hills of rubble really. Even the densest cities, once collapsed to time, become only hills really. Civilization, compressed into rock, sub-ducted under continents, a thin poisonous line in the sedimentary rock cliffs of an unknown future ocean.

Blood Moon is the symbolic representation of omen, of dread, of other worldly, of bad times on the horizon. Of drought, of flood, of famine, of wind. Of smoke in the air. What else makes a moon red, other than pollution? Of forest fires, of factories, of cities.

To see a Blood Moon is to see the downfall of our actions. We risked too much, being too special. We trusted the speed and efficiency of new and shiny things. And now its all mountains. Like we had been living in the mountains this whole time, and only now realize it.

In light of the House Rule (Direct Action : If all the cards you draft are old border, your minimum deck size is 30) going so well during the last draft, a few things have become apparent.

1 : The Direct Action Decks are super fun and consistent, and even though I don't include very many tutors, these decks get there with 'combos' anyway. Thus, more specific synergies can be included.

2 : We've been pretty loose with games during draft night. Not really keeping track of how many games we've played with who and just doing 1 offs. But, this environment really wants folks to leverage sideboards depending on if you are playing against Kings. So we are going to switch to 3 game matches on the reg for this meta.

• Had to cut Arcane Savant because of the infinite combo potential. I had it played against me, and while I didn't care, my opponent (a new player to magic in general) didn't think it was fun or fair to win in this way. Hullbreaker Horror will be a perfect King in this slot.
• Had to cut Gush because it breaks the restriction rule, and these extra rules and shit are allready taxing enough for folks to keep track of. Looking to try out the tricks of Raven Guild Master which will, at least, raise eyebrows in the draft when folks are shooting for 30 card decks.
• BIG SAD cutting Thieving Magpie but at 4mv with two pips and weak teeth, it's just to hard to justify anymore. Killing my darlings here. ooof. Dropping in this new trick with Whirlpool Warrior, which helps dig but might put on more mill pressure.
• Every old boomer has semi over Tradewind Rider but in all the years I've ran it in various Ancient Times cubes it's never done the thing. It's done. Wash Out on the other hand has consistently out preformed in a vacuum, and now has Distorting Lens to help it.
• Burn Down the House was too easy to cast, and never really FELT like a King spell the way the Seasons do in the other colors. (and no I'm NOT going to put in the red season, it sucks and I don't want treasure tokens everywhere. gross) ...so. Dance with Calamity is just Timmy crack. This is going to be totally bonkers and I'm here for it.
• And finally : Aluren seemed like the right move for this cube, but actually...the fact that it's 2GG makes it's usefulness dropping agro folks early, well, not great. It doesn't do what I wanted it to do. Convince me otherwise if you care. Root Maze feels like the right card for the moment. The prison brews are putting up bars and I want to see more, and get in conversations about the military industrial complex.

• Arcane Savant is fun, but the infinite combo with Season of Weaving was actually not fun to play against.
• Gush made people confused because it 'technically' breaks the restrictions of the cube, being 5mv and old.
• Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth should be a new border, so I guess I'm dropping $11 on a new one. Because to make the restriction and house rule easier to understand, it helps if there are not any 'new' old border cards.
• Burn Down the House is fine...but it doesn't FEEL like a king spell

The Kings are getting more expensive and more powerful.
They are now making up new rules and decrees that only benefit them.

But...you know what they say,
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall."

The Dinos were just a little to Christmasland for me. I know I have the low cost artifacts and stuff, but they end up being just a really expensive 7/7 with no evasion.

Quilled is a super fun monster of a wurm that I've been drooling over since I first saw a preview.

👑👑👑

Goto display and select 'Show inline emojis'

• Price of Progress is the perfect card. Perfect name, perfect flavor, perfect function for this environment.
• Ruination is what happens to big box stores after they have been pimped out by seasonal Spirit Halloween's once or twice and now have a few windows boarded up and grass growing in the cracks of their desolate parking lots.
• Back to Basics was the emotional mission of the hippies as they moved to Maine and further north, in search of a simple but difficult lifestyle during the turmoil of the 1970's.
• Strip Mine is where my father worked as a demolition expert. He was the one that placed the explosives in the landscape to blow it up. So nature could be ground down into dust and the heavy metals could be extracted.
• Acid Rain is what happens when you fuck around and find out. When I proxied this I should have changed the name to Silent Spring in retrospect. This is here to put the fear into the heart of Green.
• Terravore is the manifestation of liberal guilt, that we didn't do anything while the earth burned, that we just stayed in inside and watch our little screens, and we are still doing nothing, waiting for the techocrats to save us, waiting like fools for a King to fix the system.
• Planar Birth is for the Culture War. In case two Cabbage decks fight it out mean and unfair with land destruction against each other.

• Yawgmoth's Will is when you meet with your King Boss and HR, and you try to remember all the good stuff you did at your job, and you try to explain why you need a raise. God help you poor Cabbage. I hope it works out.
• Gamble is what we've done with this planet.
• Stifle could be you telling Karen to shut the fuck up, because you just. cannot. even. today Karen. Just. no. please.
• Grindstone is Monday morning and you need this stupid job to pay your stupid rent to a stupid King you've never even met. I swear humanity took a bad turn somewhere on the evolution path. This cannot be the way.
• Ensnaring Bridge this place is prison.
• Aluren when you were little you ran through tall grass and for a moment it felt like that field was infinite. But you were not worried about being lost, you were excited to start a new life, as a field mouse, and never go back to the house again.

Highcliff Felidar there is a theory of the Cat Apocalypse. As feral cats are caught and put into shelters, the ones that get adopted are the cats that are not afraid of humans. You wouldn't adopt a cat that tried to bite you? Similarly, the feral cats that beg at the park table, and are then adopted this way, are then neutered like the others.

The result is that feral cats that like humans are being adopted and then do not reproduce. Humanity is driving a selective evolutionary pressure on feral cats, which has the effect that feral cats get more and more scared and afraid of humans. And thus reproduce this trait, while we selectively subtract the 'friendly to human' traits from the feral cat population.

As so, we are moving toward a Cat Apocalypse. Where feral cats hate us, and will no doubt soon hunt us in the streets.

• With more non-basic land destruction in the environment, it felt okay upgrading the Lairs to bounce lands.
• Bounce lands can still do the Gemstone Mine trick that I love to see and feels great to do.
• They tighten up the colors a lil which I think is for the better for the health of mono and dual color Cabbage builds in the environment.
• They are most likely picked up by King players. Or so I'm told.
• Thematically, they look like King lands; temples and factories and otherwise complete re-imaginings and perversions of the natural world.

These Familiars are spies. Can't have them making the Kings cheaper. (don't get me started about the dorks, we already know where they stand)

As for Anger and Zombie Infestation, I'm cutting discard stuff.

This'll open up space for (I think) the more interesting land destruction and other 'fun' lock pieces.

Thoughts on any of these?
I'm really feeling Price of Progress that feeling thematic and powerful

So yes...
Reincarnation is specifically a King maker. Yall better hate draft this.

The traitors in question here are actually spies working undercover for the Kings. Clearly.

I think this environment is going to rely on the sideboard a lot. So here are some cards that you might want after you figure out what is going on.

Especially Jester's Cap. OMG. Go dig out all those damn Kings lol!

and

In this plane, known as 'Late Stage Capitalism', the elite and powerful Kings have poisoned the land for years. But, there is possibility, that upon these toxic fields the Cabbages can make a stand. A possibility to force the Kings to drink from the well that they contaminated.