Powerful Nothing

Updates to the MTGO Vintage Cube - August 2025 - #59

• Too Sweet MTG • Season 1 • Episode 59

Share episode

This week we're discussing the new season of Vintage Cube on MTGO, what we like and what we don't like, and what we think the best things to do right now are.

Card Gallery: https://moxfield.com/decks/6d2n7sXmn0ik2e6LlXEOHA

Daybreak Articles: https://www.mtgo.com/news/eoe-vintage-cube-update
https://www.mtgo.com/vintage-cube-cardlist

MTGO Vintage Cube List: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/modovintage#

00:01:51 - Overview of cube
00:06:06 - Power Matters
00:20:18 - Landfall
00:32:00 - Other adds to the cube
00:37:49 - Notable Cuts
00:50:26 - Final Thoughts

My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet
The Treat Yourself Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/treatyourself
James Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ba642a54-a6c7-4587-b97e-1d95429c59b5
MTGO Vintage Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/modovintage

Social Links: https://linktr.ee/toosweetmtg

Runaway by Diamond Ace | https://soundcloud.com/diamond-ace-music
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm the host, Dan, and as always, I'm joined by my co-host James. James. How are you doing? Are you ready to talk some cube? Oh, I always I'm, I always, marvelous. Well, we have a cool website for today. Today we're going to be talking about the current state and the most recent updates to the mic go Vintage Cube. So this is something we're we're planning on doing every time there's a major update to the Vintage Cube. We generally see a change nowadays, kind of like after, every set as I try out new cards. But the go vintage tube is back up. It's been up since the 20th of August, I believe, so we're about halfway through the season now. I know James has been grinding hard on some games, and with that, we kind of want to give our thoughts on the cube and to give a kind of an update on what new strategies they're trying, what cards we like, what cards we don't like, and what we think is cool. Yeah, I think they've got an interesting mix of new additions. Some of them work pretty well, some of them really don't. So we can hopefully find unravel us a little bit. Exactly. And like because because the mega Vintage cube is prime is is going to be a lot of people's main way of interacting with cube. Consider this like a little level up. Kind of like our opinions on what we think is good in the in the industry. Because again, yeah, it's the most readily accessible cube. If you have mic go, you can draft this when it's up. So I wanted to touch on that. Just a reminder, there will be time codes down in section below. If you want to jump around. There will also be an image gallery in the show notes below. There'll be link to a mox field if you want to go and see every card that we're gonna be talking about today, we will, we will read out any new ones or any updates, ones that are less common. But for things like Soul Ring, there is a world where I don't read out sovereign apologies if you don't know what that does. We do love you, but I think before we get into the updates, it's probably best because there will be people listening to this who've never drafted the Mego Vintage Coupe or don't know what it is. So we're going to give give a quick summary before we jump in. So the mega event is cube is a 540 powered cube, which means it has the Power nine, it has MOX and it has Black Lotus. It has all the good stuff. It also has Soul Ring and Manor Crypt and other good fast manner. We have flash, we have Maneskin blue, we have Forte Lingus, we have also bombardiers. We have some of the most efficient cards in all of magic. We also have a track. So an arc on and full blown, full powered Re-Animator. We have shields it, we have whole breacher, we have bow masters for the very strong wheel deck. In this cube we have doomsday. We have that is Oracle for that deck. But no demonic consultation as a nice little power check. We do have brain freeze and tendrils of agony, but it does look a little like on on rituals. And if I'm speaking with friend of the channel firetruck Moto, the storm deck doesn't really work outside of brain freeze. Underworld breach led, and there's also no channel Time Vault or Initiative cards, so it's not an all out powered cube, but it has been tailored to be a power to you. That's a bit less miserable. Do you think that's all fair, James? Yeah, yeah, I think that's fairly reasonable. I think we've had a pretty big shift in the last, maybe five years of this. We have over a month horizon that's coming out that it's a lot more like very efficient, very powerful three and four mana cards. And that's sort of taken the cube a little bit away from combo and a little bit more towards mid-range. And my great threats. I have lots of good interaction. Trying to win the game that way. Because essentially, you know, in magic now you get the same amount of fat for three mana as you used to for five manor. So we've moved away from having to buy stuff like talismans and whatnot, but now just jamming great cards on turns two, three and four. And the removal is really good so that it's not unbalanced. I think, it is the tools to fight all of that stuff. But, because the cube has moved, I'd say, away from some of the, the attacks, not all the some of the busted combo attacks are still busted, right? Like, if you have the, the b, b of A good pieces for Re-Animator or flash Stack, but those things still work. But, like chunkier stone decks, it's pretty tough now, to be honest. It is not a forgiving environment right now. Yeah, I completely agree. Kind of like like I see some of the decks that like you're driving or people dropping and they just look so much more like I know they are more powerful than five years ago, but they just look way more fair. It's just like I'm curving out with good creatures and sometimes here's a flash, that kind of thing. But like the majority of decks, I kind of like my curve stops at my minis combo and they're just dead by the time we get to that point. Yeah, for sure. There's, it's kind of like because the quote unquote fact cards are so powerful, you don't need to put that quote unquote bad cards in your deck to make combos happen. You can often just, rely on the individual power level of your first. Exactly. And also, like, we haven't really seen too many new combos that are manner efficient. Like, I like the days of, Splinter Twin are long gone because those are like five mana spells. Yeah, the five mana spells, and they get kind of wrecked by removal, right? And, one of the consequences of the shift towards very powerful, cheaper creatures in the cube is that people play more of a move removal. People put a higher premium on removal. So you're just isn't going to survive as often. Not definitely. So, so, so that's kind of where the cube is right now. Definitely more creature focused creature based than it's been previously, but there is still, as James mentioned, there is still like Re-Animator. Oh, the juried specialty show. You can still do the broken things. You can still do the broken makeup industry stuff, but it is a bit more creature based, which is kind of lead us on nicely to one of the archetypes that they've made, that they've added to the cube. We will also put a link down to Daybreak Games articles. They're the ones running the, go now. But the first update we're gonna be talking about is a Powers Matters archetype. This this is something we've seen before, but not for a while. The Tldr for this is it's sort of Final Fantasy fold. We won't get into that. Specifically, this is an archetype looking to get the best out of cards like Veve on it. And Cori steel cutter, like, using cheap spells to pump up their power and make it makes cars like Kobe steel got a bigger threat and makes you more bodies and it. And with Veve, that's the one from Final Fantasy where if it's, it, it generates mana equal to its power. And when you cast a spell it to count on it. So a pump spell with it means you can effectively Black Lotus straight away, get your money back. It's very, very strong. So with this kind of Power Matters archetype, they've added a bunch of pump spells. So they've added things like mutagenic growth, which is a for action mana for an instant to give two plus two plus two to lend a ton. They've added monstrous growth which is to manifest. So as we talked about you get plus four plus four until end of turn. If I invigorate which is two in a green for an instant, but it has the ultimate cost. If you control a forest rather than pay the spouse mana cost, you may have an opponent gain three life, but importantly, it gives target creature plus four plus four until end of turn. And they've added berserk, which just in. Generally I'm always here for the zerk is a single grain for an instant cost it only before the combat damage step target creature gains trample. And guess what I would like to turn? Wax is its power. They think of. Next step. Destroy that creature if it attack the stat. So they've added a bunch of pump spells to the cube in the notes. They specifically say they want to get the most out of Eevee. Before we kind of go into how they work in the archetype, James, how do you like how do you feel about pump spells in general? And, and their place in specifically a high powered cube like this? Yeah, I, I'm not a big believer in this, to be honest. I think the thing is the you can just play cards that are powerful enough on their own without having to play, without having to buff them. You know, like if you look at some of for payoff for this like have awesome. There are some good cards, right. Like for I did not save as a verb. Avoid some kind of say that session, but be, like the green guy where you have beginning of combat, you've a counter on it, and then that thing gets counts as equal to its power. Like, that's a good card. And it is significantly better if you can buff its power. So great. But I'm interested in buffing its power with something like a drizzly Belle or a Luminar Caspian, you know, independently. Good card, which can buff its power. I'm really not interested in putting mutagenic cloaks in my deck and just going getting a first main. I clap for mana, I put this into play, and then I just cast a mutagenic vote and hope you don't care. I, I don't think that's a good strategy. I think you would do better by tapping full mana playing. Say I was on Wild Odyssey. If they kill it instead of having a grove in hand, you've just got another good polish off in hand, you know? Yeah. I just feel like the cards are powerful enough. Now, while we. We don't need to be playing bad cards to buff some, like, you can do some explosive stuff, but I, there will be games where it looks great. I don't know, but it's, you know, it is a winning strategy in the aggregate. But yeah, we will kind of deep dive into what the rest of the archetype is, but kind of like on a single card point of view. I do like berserk. Berserk is cool, but it does have the gotcha single Green Manor double screeches power, give it trample. I personally am a big fan of berserk. I know from a power point of view it might not be that like if you're going to do power meter stuff, it's the perfect card to bring in. I'm up for the rest of them. I do agree combat like I love combat tricks in magic, but they are a bit more bread and butter. Limited, if that makes sense. They're a bit more kind of like you're doing a set draft. That's where, that's where I feel, combat tricks tend to work a bit better. But let's talk about some of the other cards they brought in to kind of to go along with those combat tricks. So one card they brought back in, but again, gets better when it has a higher power and works quite nicely with some of the cheap buffs. Is great old Arcanist. This is one a read for A13 creature with trample, and when it attacks, you may cast hug it into your sorcery card with combat in manacles less than or equal to dread, darkness, power from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. If that card to put into your grave at this time exalted instead. So the gimmick with this is you buff its power and then you can cast a better spell from your graveyard. Again, that's kind of cool. We also have slick shots show off, which is a very. I think it's actually quite a strong card, but it has struggled to find a place by itself. But in this archetype I think is quite good. That's one read for a one to, creature bird, wizard with flying and haste. But I'm gonna have you cast in a creature spell. It gets plus two plus. Oh, and then attached. So that's like, effectively double prowess. That's pretty good. And you can plot it for one to read. They also have Tifa Lockhart, which is one of the Final Fantasy cards. This is one the green for a one to human monk with trample. And whenever land you control enters double its power until end of time. There are some cool stuff you can do with this, and we'll kind of get on to in a minute. There was like, I think they was trying to get turn 3 or 4 kill with this, but we will get onto that in a little bit. There is the aura. Boy, does James mentioned that. And then there is also unruly crisis. Unruly crisis is one green and a blue for a for four creature shop. Octopus lizard. Very similar. It has trample and when it attacks, you might have the base bound of another target which you control become X slash x until end of turn where X is unruly crisis power, and it has a depth three for three and a Simic. So those are kind of some of the cards along with the steel cutter and the V on it. Two that were kind of combining. I guess it's kind of a team Irish archetype, I'm guessing based group, but you're smashing blue for V and a smashing girl for a flashing blue for unruly crisis like I, I can I can see what the deck is trying to do. And I think it has the possibility of some explosive turns, as you kind of mentioned, James, but kind of like it does seem very stoppable. Like an hour overview of the cube. We were saying that it's because it's very creature centric. There's a lot more removal. Now, this does seem a lot like I need to have a creature, I need to play another spell. And that all needs to resolve, not be counted, not have the creature die in response to them casting a spell to do anything. Is that fair? James? Would you agree with that? Yeah, for sure. And like a lot of these are not bad cards by like dreadful darkness. If you have enough one mana spells is already kind of fine. I know that you're already one of the beast chatting folks in your deck for a night, but, like Tifa Lockhart, I think if you just have a bunch of that pop up, they're fine. Card. Yeah. It it's it's a little sketchy, but it can certainly skills kill some people. Yeah. The void I think is is just pretty solid. Yeah, I like it if you can buff its power. Great. But again, I need to put on my back to do that. You know, I appreciate that. If I already have a board and I play a void and I put invigorates on it and they don't do anything to me, then I'm probably going to win. But, I was probably going to win if I cast pressing B since, you know, yeah, it's quite notable that of all the pump they put in, none of them that actually protection spells, right? We don't see like a blossoming defense or something. I think they did. I like a Legolas is quick refill quickly. So that's that's not too bad I don't think. Is that. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just to faction. So I guess that's meant to be trying to fill that role, but, it just seems to me like, you know, even with V, which I guess is for card for very trying to push. Yeah. And it's one they call it out in the article, like Vivi is already cracked when it lifts. Yeah. The problem with Vivi is not that it doesn't have enough power. Most of the time. If you've put a bunch of styles in your deck like I know man, just play meshes. Ball, ball you don't need, okay? You just need to play invigorate. Just give me every bauble and every like every op to variants like, like let's sleight of hand this James. Let's do everything. Exactly, exactly. I will say like the pump spells are not zero's in that there have matchups where they're quite good. Like if your opponent's removal is all lightning bolts and stuff, then it's actually a pretty good card. Or if it's one of a matchups where blocking is actually really an important part for match matchup, which is like for use, you have for combat tricks in most limited formats, right? But in high power level cubes, that just isn't as important a part of the game, right? Like you be trying to blow out double boxes, just not as much. What games of vintage Q about compared to, games of like, adolescentes level sets, you know, versus just, it's just not a, it's not a style of magic that is particularly conducive to combat. Fits in that, in that solid base form of trying to win combats, you know, I, I do agree with that. I think one thing with this so, so with every update after a new set comes out, there is like even before it was Daybreak Games testing it or even before it was it was like daybreak games running it. When it was Wizards running it. There was always this want to try new cards, which I do appreciate. And I do feel with this, I like the fact that they've actually tried to make an archetype with the new cards rather than just here. Obligatory 20 new rares and mythic from the set that have no synergy with anything. I do like the fact they've at least tried to think about, okay, Vivi is cool. We've just happy, or a void is pretty cool. Like, a bunch of the other cards are like, cut like like like things like old Arcanist have been in before. Things like sexual strife have been in before. I like the fact they have. At least I tried to think how it could work. And like, if I'm honest with you, my main criticism of the archetype isn't that I don't think it's cool. I just think from a power level point of view in this cube, I don't think it gets there. My I honestly think in a lower power level cube, this could actually be quite fun and quite strong. And like outside of berserk and or avoid every copy mention is actually relatively budget. So if you're running a budget cube, I think you could put something like this in pretty easily. And in cubes where there's less efficient removal, where there's less, just like walls of stats at two and three. I think this could actually be quite cool. Yeah, yeah for sure. Like, I think it is not a bad archetype at it, but I think, I think it is a bad fit for this cube. Like, yeah, it's to me, this needs to be in a cube where various insults to plowshares and even like the assembly, five ones, you know, like even when even when they're tapped out, you know, so not safe. Like, you know, you you do all this nonsense, and then they just cast enough out and the game just ends, you know? Yeah, exactly. But like, like, I think the cube already needs to have combat tricks in it potentially. Like if you if you already have a giant growth in your cube, for example, or you know, if rankers in your cube, if rancor is in your cube, then I think you can run it. And I think it will be I think that it can be like like like I think this this can definitely like like and you touched on it on the James I think it can have very strong like one shot turns. And I do think if you wanted to draft this deck you will get it. And that necessarily might not be a complement. Like it feels a bit kind of like the chain of smoke combo where it's like it kind of it falls to someone at the end because no, no one else wants it, if that makes sense. Like guess it does feel like like if you're in this deck, you can get the pump spells because, well, at least no other deck wants them. And if anyone's fighting for the pump spells and something's done a bit of Orion that draft, yes, for sure, for sure you can. Certainly we have all of these cards. So yeah, just lastly, with this artifact, it is worth us touching on the turn three kill it can do, which is kind of rad. Basically, if you have Tifa Lockhart on, turn to into a fetch land on turn three. If you respond to the landfill trigger of playing the fetch land by cracking the fetch land, go and get an untap land. You can then hard cast, invigorate, and stack it so that the Tifa becomes a becomes a fire powered creature. And then your landfill triggers both go off, making it a 10 pound creature, then a 20 pound creature that is a 20 powered creature on turn three. That is very good. That is, assuming they have no blockers and have not done anything else in the game. But it is kind of cool. Like it's kind of something I expect to see, like LSV do in a YouTube short at some point. And then fall to a stiff breeze the rest of the time, but again in a lower powered cube where there isn't snuff out and there isn't as much interaction. That could be quite a cool way of winning a game of magic. Yeah for sure. Now, when it all comes together and and they don't stop here, it is powerful. It is quick. And Tifa. Tifa is just a powerful card, like doubling, but doubling as a mechanic for stacks. Very well. Yeah. And yeah, I say I'm sort of more interested in buffing out with, like, a bristly petal of a, luminous banana. Any of those things which, just, like, independently effects on my own. I'm kind of more interested in that. And then playing catch land valve of, invigorate mechanic stuff, just because I feel like those cards are too bad for rest of the time. But Tifa somehow forgot, and I think you can say the same thing for the, void. I think at void, I kind of expect to stick around, even if I end up crushing a lot of the pump spells, I think, because just decent. I think they must be high on it, because we'll we'll get to this in more detail when we get to our cut section. But they, they cut creator of behemoth of this which I'm kind of here for. But that's a conversation we'll get to at the end of the episode when we talk about the cards that that have come out, because next, we don't need to talk about the other big archetype change that they have made. And it's they've kind of gone deeper on a landfall deck. So this landfall strategy, we kind of already have quite a few cards already for it. Like we have two tiny, and we have zero knob style cards that, like, reward us. The sacking lands on top of that. We have the landfill cards like bristly Bill that we've mentioned. And also, for color omnibus. We also have things like Fast Bond in the queue. We have crucible of wild style calls. This is play lands on my graveyard. Those already are quite strong things you can do, but we've kind of added a bit more redundancy to that and that's quite nice. So to that we've added Ice to explorer, which I think was both of our favorite card from Edge of Eternities. That's the format of two four. That is both a ramp like excavator and an exploration staples onto one insect scout, and I think we're both quite high on that. They've also added based off Prime, which like titanium, makes bodies when you sack lands, they brought back in greater cargo down as an actual sack outlet. So it kind of it works with this archetype, but it also works with other aristocratic style of things. And then they've added, I don't I think it's the landscape lands. James, these are the modern horizon landscape, guys. I think that the lands are for colorless and can fetch, can fetch a basic of one of three colors and have cycling for the cost of because they can fetch for basically to remind you what colors they can fetch for. Yeah. These lands, these land to kind of annoying me, to be honest. Yeah. I think the lands aren't the strongest. Honestly, I can't, I don't myself have. I just thought of Volvic while wild silver cube. You know, if we're trying to do that, I understand what they're going for. If I want more, more ways to get to landfill and stuff on land. But these are quite weak. And having, you know, having your fairly weak land only fixed three colors. And you actually, you know, a lot of texture, one of these anyway. So I just kind of suck and then but the, the decks, which I barely do on that extra fetch land, you then actually need to get up on them in your colors. I honestly think they'd be better off just putting evolving Wilds in the cubes and putting these in, like the idea of. It's like it's, when you already have your colors. It's not a sap land, but, Yeah, I, I just, but, I think it's kind of better to just have land for fixes. Fixes for your colors. In general, at least I don't come into play tab, but I will say that that that is at least a plus. I think I would like it more if there was, like, a colorless matters deck in here. Like if we were casting. What's the five mana l draws with, like, trample and haste and stuff? Yeah. Like what? Like if Reality Smash was in, give it a bit more synergy. Then I could, then I could see them a bit more, but just as it is, I think they're, they're a bit weak, but kind of like yeah. And oh they would be great if they fetched jewels, right. Like if I fetched jewels I'd be on to them. But they fetch that basics and not even all basics. It's basics, of course, but there's like there like I don't think there's a full cycle of them, but there isn't ten of them. I think it's only like 4 or 5. And, Specifically on this, I think it's something they would do better at just by if I'm honest, what we really want is just some extra, like just run extra fetch lands, just break Singleton for fetch lands if you're really trying to push this strategy. But I think we like bringing it back to the actual non land cards. I think we're both a fan of the non land cars, like I think they're both a fan of. Like I still explore a bale of prime and greater dog Dawn as kind of like a addition to this land full package that's already been in that like like do you like, how have you felt about that deck in the past, James? And how do you feel about these additions in terms of like making it more whole, just giving you some more redundancy? Basically, yes. I think these additions are very good for that actually. Based off time, I think more of that titanium stuff is actually what this deck needs. Because it's, it's an eye win button. It's pretty quick one and it's one which I actually can't necessarily stop with removal. And that's a pretty big deal, right? Like if you have the seven of them play, you play your, you'll pay off time, a point in the middle spell out in space where you can still cycle lands and, and fossils and, that is that's often going to be enough. You know. So I, I really like that addition. I think the ISO explorer is just a very strong card, which speaks about for how like Fishable strip mine actually just doesn't feel good enough for most of the time anymore if you don't have exploration, because if that have any sort of board presence, they have to you have because you're not progressing your mana. You end up just, you can't just keep sending all the and ship mining them. Right. But this solves that problem because it gives you the extra land for pattern, of I will say the downside is real, that, that fast pond, as an old thing doesn't work perfectly with this because because you have you have to miss it. It's on as well with that. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Nice. The explorer also has land for whenever you a land you can throw. And as a card. I refuse to think of that as a downside. James. I think in general like upside. Right. But if you're you don't want to do it infinitely necessarily because you do have to him. That said, I think that's I think that's fine. I think you can think that might make that work. I really like adding vertical compaction, because I think that's just a very clear card for has a lot of that card, a lot of very different application and different acts. I've been having a lot of fun with the, greater good on balance combo. It's very good. Oh, James, it's, it's great. Yeah. You, you you stack all your lands and all your creatures, you know, Glasgow done. And you cast balance. Your opponent has no lands and no creatures. Then you stack, like your last artifact or whatever, flying around after a balance, and you have A97 haste into that. No lands and creatures, and then you end. And proper magic I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I think it's actually, like, kind of playable in very aggressive stacks as well. Like, I think it is. It's nice and flexible, like the play. Like, I don't think the cube is supporting full on aristocrats, but like, there is just like stuff that makes bodies like there is like a breach of the schism that spit stuff out. Like we still have Goblin Rebel, Moss said. Like, like there will still be a red black sacrifice adjacent deck that, can use grated Guardian. Maybe not in the full like, blood artist type of deck, but like stuff dies in cube. Just having it that some nice redundancy. Like if a point ever moves at your creature in response I stick it to my target on. It's going to come eventually. Basically. Yeah, exactly. And it's so many things just like, incidentally, make a treasure or blood or whatever now, right? But that really helps. And you just get to a point in the game where you, you can just sack about, it's A97 we have, we traded all you traded all your movable spells followed by fangs. This is the last bag left and it's going to kill you. And a very small number of heads. Now I see it. Yeah. I think in general we are both quite big fans of the land hold. And like, I picked up both the Bailiff Prime and the Ice Explorer. They're both going to get like this is, this is something I already have in one of my cubes. And just these additional bits is just extra redundancy, especially in a 540 where you don't see every card. It means that eventually this deck is always going to exist. It means that kind of like like previously you could draft the whole deck, but like if you didn't see the zero no, Opal, you didn't see that little tiny, you were kind of a bit buggered. Whereas now, like we have redundancy at every point, like, yes, yes, yes, there's only one fast bond, but there is ice still explorer to play actual land. There is exploration to play actual lands. We have that we have we have some redundancy there. We have ways of sacking lands. We have an orb and we have such lands that set themselves and strip mine the sack themselves. And now we have a second version of the card that makes bodies and rewards us and advances our game plan. As James was saying, and actually gives us a win. And that's really nice. So I'm yeah, generally quite happy with this archetype. I think it's a great one thing to add. I could see this one sticking around for quite a while, and I could probably maybe see them going a bit deeper on it. Maybe there are plenty of good landfall cards out there, and it's already one just that that was represented pretty well. But I think just yeah, this is one that kind of is going to stick around and continue to get more support as as time goes on. Yeah, for sure. I think it's cool. One I think it's it's very good for green to have something synergistic and powerful to do. You know, talking of synergistic and powerful, there is another card they've added for this archetype. They're kind of like for me, it's more of a combo card with another broken magic card. So they've added might form harmonizer because of how it works with nado. And that's kind of why I'm kind of hot on this card. There might form harmonizer is two green green for a four for it is an insect druid with landfall whenever land you can enters double the power of target creature. You control until end of turn, and it has a warp two and a green. So you need both do and you need might form harmonizer in play. Basically, if you can play a land and then trigger might form harmonizer targeting nada. If you ripped two lands off the top of your deck and it'll make it a 24 powered flier, but you could potentially do that on turn four. That's kind of cool. Like James, how do you feel about like about might might form a harmonizer specifically as a combo card with no do. It's cool. I think it's, but it's the thing of but like, I would put this card in my bat in my not attack for sure. I don't know if it's like a higher priority fan. Favorite type cat club bell stuff because those are better cards on their own. And like, yes, this kills them quicker. If not do. But when you're going off and doing your not do thing, you win. So such a high proportion of those games, right? But that said, it's not only ends up being enough that, I would put this card of my technology back and I, I do think it's good. And yeah, you need to get a bit lucky. Flipping lands at just 25 and my mongo. But I'll say, you know, sometimes play fetch lands, sometimes, sometimes you have multiple land drops in the stack. Oh. Like you, or, you know, sometimes it just takes two turns and that's fine, right? Like, if you didn't have a land, you're doing a spell like spells. Pretty good. Yeah. So, I think this is cool. A cool addition for do like, I'm not sure it's one that is necessarily going to still be in the queue then like as time and I yeah. Going for drops are good enough by themselves and like, at least it is a full amount of four for if I have trample, I think it would stick around for quite a while, but it is effectively a four man, slice of beef that has the potential for combo. Yeah. For sure. Sure. And like it does just, definitely die to people. Just doubling the power of that questing beast twice, you know, like that. Kelsey, to like the best in a fat slam, that it is a lot of damage. Oh yeah. That's a nice, cool little interaction. We kind of wanted to shout out, but, so those are kind of the big archetype changes. But obviously with any update, there are just general changes to kind of just balance things and keep things fresh. So let's talk about some of the cards that have come in. I'm going to read out some cards. James, tell me what you think about them. Ephemera is back in. Personally, I don't know why this is of a cut. This seems it's just like a bread and butter. Fantastic magic card. Are you glad if I'm right back? I really like if I'm right. Yeah, I will say it's like you don't actually get to put it in your deck that often, but when you do, it's very fun. Yeah. They typically shout it out like it's really good with evoke creatures. And now warp is a mechanic. They're trying to show off. Ephemera is great with that. Like like evoke you can double dip and that's really good. Oh yeah, sure I have. I have a federated Quantum Riddler off the wall on that day and it was very good. So we'll talk about that card laser. We've got Emory Lurker of the lot coming in, or coming back in for the artifact deck again. There's another very solid magic card. We've got Mystic Confluence coming back in is a big counterspell. We've got blood, Chief Thirst coming back in like a not, cheap removal. Being good, nice and flexible. And talking of everyone's favorite flame, John Carver was back in. If we're needing to deal with creatures, decay is probably getting a bit better. They also brought a lotus cobra in for the landfall deck. They swapped out a different manner. Dawg. If we are trying to push the landfall thing and we are adding those, albeit bad additional fetch lands, Lotus Cobra is at least a way of making them a bit more defensible, I would say. And then another one from the new set that they've added is Tesseract. Cool, captain? There's one. I think that people were both very high on from the last set. A new one. That's a very good fit in the artifact deck and can make you a ton of mana by untap, like your Grim monolith and other adjacent cards like that. Again, glad there's no time vault in this cube, because that would be broken. But yeah, Tesla, it seems like a good Add and was it was kind of a as soon as we saw it is like this is obviously going in vintage cubes. Yeah for sure. I definitely want to phase car. It's a bit of a sulfur. That's a thing right? Where if you opened a MOX solving or amount of oil for something, then this card really magnifies the power of that. Like they can get it and it can on top of yeah, very, very strong. Most of these anyway seem fine to me. I like most of these, cards we've seen before. I think that they do a bit of balancing, maybe trying to push up, bring an archetype up and balance it a little bit, like, James, which of these, do you like these swaps and kind of which of the newly added cards in general, including some the archetypes? Are you expecting to stick around? Yeah, I think that's a lot of good swap seven from like, I think pretty obvious stuff like, so let's use this. I think it's just very solid a family, right? I would like to just stick around for a long time. Mystic confluence I think, was actually originally cut just last season because it was bogus in some way. So they're just passing it back in. So I think that would make sense. Yes. Good. Okay. But they've also added some new cards, which I think have played very well, actually, since I was, Quantum of Adler from a new set, which is for, blue warp creature. So it's, three blue blue for A46 player when the answer is you draw a card. But as long as you have one or fewer cards in hand, if you would draw one or more cards, you draw that many cards plus one instead. So if you play it new, empty handed to 12 two cards, but it also has warp for one, the blue. This is just like it's kind of like a monster, right? There is some synergistic stuff you can do with flickering it, but you don't need to. This is just, this is just a very great card on base. You play it early. You, you know, basically whenever you can afford to spend two mana not affecting the bot, you play this for what cost? You're going to draw a card, but you can kind of think of this like drawing and like casting a draw to you. Right? Because you draw two cards and one of them is this dope five job that's going to draw you even more cards. Did you guys cast this later, you know, more essentially kind of like adventure Vice and cast it again. You draw another card, probably drawing two cards. You know, it's a good chance for drawing two cards by that point. Yeah. This is just a powerful card. Like it's a bit better index which empty your hands faster so you get that draw two more often. But obviously like most fair fabulous. That's. I'm not cutting this. I've been very impressed. And then they have a blue new blue card which they added, which I think is very good is the, consult the star charts. So this one, I think we like showing the, set with you, but it's the one, the blue for an instant with kicker of one and a blue. So you can play one, a blue or two blue three like six. Look at the top six cards. Your library wax, the number of lands you control. But one of them into your hand spell was kicked, but two of them into your hand. And for on the bottom, this is very powerful because it's so flexible. Like you can play this early as just save, find your land, take care of, move or spell whatever you need. But if you can hang on to this until ten for turn five, it's going to be a really nice tool to solve a and, same space, a factual fiction type card. But if you go really late and you're looking, it's just nice to feel lively all of a sudden and getting two of them, and then it's getting really busted. Yeah, I think I very like this. I think this is sort of probably better than sort of takes free time, for example, in most decks, to ask for a lot less of you, and has the flexibility for if it's in your open hand and you need to play as early you can, there's still fine card. No, that's also nice. So those are all the ends we want to talk about. Unfortunately, for every card that comes in, the card has to be cut so we can make room. Let's talk about some notable cards. So I'm going to go through every card, but we're gonna talk about some cards that we think are worth touching on. The first one that's come out, which seems a little weird to me, given everything we've talked about going in is monitoring mental. I think I feel like this is a bit of a weird cut with all the puppet spells coming in with the idea of we're trying to do Vive stuff and just play a bunch of spells again and again. Mostly Mendocino is very good in that deck. They talk to end for a similar card from edge of Eternity's, but for me, mostly mental. Seems like a bit like this is a fan favorite. Like, do you think this is a weird one times? Do you think this will be like, swap back in in the next update? If we are keeping the pumped spell stuff around, I kind of get it. To be honest, I. I always really want honesty, mental to be good and I just think it's too easy to kill for free mana, you know? Like things that where it feels like you have to save it until you have for five mana, so you can kind of figure right away. It's just so fragile, you know? Like the dream, the dreams are really good. Like, it's occasionally does busted stuff. But I just find often I put it into action. It underperforms. So they switched it out for me. Over cosmic. And if it's like, yes, three mana to fall when you play a second spell and you even make two on one side, you are, you put counters on each creature. Like, obviously mental is way better in the turn where you play eight spells, but I think in the majority of games, probably the zenith is better because it's actually giving you more of best trigger and it's and it's, it's yeah, it has full softness, you know, it's just a lot harder to kill. I just find that mental too frequently, like, you tap out. You can't trick that right away. They can. Like, you had a big mana disadvantage, and it doesn't block kind of thing, right? Yeah. I just know it's it's occasionally amazing. It has good, good moments. Like, I conceive the outcome of the on average, it's maybe not. My goodness. Oh that's right. I mean, I think I've, James, I've discovered the real reason why it was cards. Do you know how old monastery Mentor is as a card? How many years? It's got to be close to ten of. It's fine. It's over ten like it was over a decade ago. So that that's why, you know, that's why it's been cut. Yeah. It's dangerous age. That would make sense. A card that was also cut that I, I, I quite like. Oh, I don't know, I think is really strong is chromo c shock. Maybe it's just, it's just the wrong environment for it. Right now. It's very much a sign that, like, big spells is not really supported at the moment. Like if we were doing anything that kind of like casting big spells for cheap or free, then I think Grumpus is a shoo in. I still like it. And just like an artifact deck of just making you a bunch of stuff. But but that's come out. Also, we've had Eureka and channel cut. They've in generally talked about that. They're trying to move away from like big Green sheet stuff into play. Eureka and channel are quite cornerstones of that archetype, but channel is a very strong magic card. So it's it's interesting that this might be one of the few times channel hasn't, hasn't been cut from a cube from a purely power level point of view, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, I don't like this change at all, to be honest. And see where they're coming from. Channel is is kind of not what it used to be in some ways. Like obviously going channel and McCall is still busted, but it's, it just feels harder to build a good channel deck, you know, because, the cards that channel one so often, not the cards that have a green decks one and it's green. Green, but I would still keep that because I think it's it is a card which can you can draft a whole deck around. Right. And it's in a very unique way. It and I think just giving up one slot at the back to the, a range of things you can draft in a format is a very low cost. I think this is a cube for people come back and draft again and again and it doesn't change that much. These mean people still keep coming back and drafting it, and that's because of the range of different things you can draft. Right. And I think this narrows that range cuts like this. Like, sure. I can certainly imagine that the dudes that they pick games look at their stats and were like, oh, this channel card doesn't win very much. And I can believe that that's true. But I don't think that means you should for me. I think you should let us all keep losing this channel because. Because sometimes you win and it's quite fun. You know? Like I was. This also annoyed me because, I didn't look at the change list before I fired up a draft and. Oh, no. James. Oh, no. Yeah, I, I started off I first draft with, I think I first picked up again, then you again and second text portal. And I was say, I'm probably just going to do an artifact thing from here. I've got like two of the best color things in my cube. It would be very dope if I saw a channel that was kind of looking out for that the whole draft, and then realized like a week later, that channel just isn't in the queue for anymore. It's quite disappointing, We should. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I sort of feel similarly about Eureka, but UV victories, because that's catchy. I will acknowledge Federico is, Yeah, it's probably not the most winning card on pile level, but but it is a very cool card. Like, I know I feel like there's a bunch of very comfortable stuff in this cube, and I don't think they needed to cut these cards. And I think they were adding something to the format just by being there. Yeah, these are ones that I or channel especially. I think we'll rotate back in pretty swiftly if they give up on the pump spells, not thing which they wish they could just take out at the next update. But some other signs of how they're really changing the way they're thinking about green Ray Fellows and Findhorn elves have come out. So we're fellas more of a sign of the big green ramp deck. I don't know, elves just there's plenty of these effects now. Not the end of the world. And we touched on it before, but crater Hoovers come out. So really a sign that we are not doing. Man, I don't, man, I don't man a doc natural order hoof anymore because you can't so, I guess that's it. I think we're both on board with. This is probably about time. Creator, who is a very strong magic card. It still wins plenty of games, primarily. Commander. Probably about time for it to, be retired from the most powerful cubes. But do you agree with that, James? Hey. Much? Unfortunately, it's, It's a cool card, but I think. Yeah, the the strategy it asks you to play just isn't that strong anymore. I definitely. And then a couple of other cuts, which, when I explain what they were cut for, will make a few people mad. So Shadow Spear has come out very strong card, especially with stuff like as a saga hunter of all. Thank very cool card again. Better if you're doing like big cheat decks. With with high amount of cost and then tangle wire and Nexus is becoming just very solid artifacts have a lot of you have some utility and are very cool cards. The fact that these were swapped out for the landscape cards, the bad fetches is a lot of smack in my head against the wall. A little bit. Again, these are we know what those cards do. They will come back in. I'm kind of fine with them testing stuff, but this was not a change I felt we need. Like, there's other ways of doing this, I think basically. Yeah. That's fair. I mean, I'm not sure go live will come back in unfortunately. I love that card, but it does have kind of a little I will acknowledge that. But yeah, like Ponto I'm sure will be back. Nexus maybe Nexus is quite expensive. Yeah. And then the last cut just to mention is Satya eighth of flux. Genius. This is kind of the energy pay off. There's still a bunch of energy stuff in the queue, but I'm assuming just this being this guy made it a bit tricky to come together. Is that fair, James? Yeah. This card was pretty cool, actually. So it looks like an energy play off. I think it's actually more just a payoff for creatures we've got and for battlefield effects. All right. Okay. Because it's you get. They call me when you attack the cards. It's just it goes away if you don't pay it. Okay. So you still, like, get the end of the battlefield tacked and the attack, even if you don't pay fancy, they do some pretty cool stuff, you know, there's, but there's a lot of powerful VFX and cube. It felt like one of those cards where if if you're that could it it was, it had a very high ceiling. I yeah, I always ashamed stamping. I, I was always like, kind of stoked about it when I got splatted at that, you know. Yeah, I like this. Like I'm a fan. This kind of like it's still in my unpowered vintage cube. And yeah, it is a it's a cool, fun, interesting. It is a three color card. So that is a tricky spot to keep in. But yeah, I, I was always a fan of that. Yeah. Cool. So those are the main cards I wanted to touch on in terms of like, what do we think of these out going? So I think kind of like outside of a few kind of individual cards, I think we've kind of discussed like the, the big overarching change is the big change, the mono green, James thoughts on changes in general and then specifically mono eye mono green ramp being shown the door. Yeah, I'm kind of fun. I feel like it's been on its way out for a while. I think it's sort of left and then came back for a little bit. I never understood why they brought it back. I think it's fine when it's going again. Yeah, I think the the cards I'm going to be a bit sad about have channel and, I think C-sharp was a weird cut. But. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I enjoyed drafting. That was really quite bad. So I think that's fair enough. Mental I get. Yeah, it's really channel and C sharp. I feel weird. Yeah, yeah, I like, especially as I think so we had Emery come back in for the artifact deck, and we had Chromo host go out, and, I mean, it's an amazing iPhone card. I'm not. Yeah. I'm not. I mean, in that column in that context. Yeah, that's a Yeah for sure. Yeah, it's it really is so good. The other thing with channel VI is like, I get that you probably Lotus invitation decided it was bad, but we're here to draft Vintage Cube. You know where we we didn't all come here to, just, you know, cast, wild odyssey on sentry. Like. That's fine, I get that. That's a part of the experience. But. But when you get vintage, you you you want there to be, like, out of doing some busted stuff. Right? And I, I think it's, I think it is a real cost y that fit. You have move an avenue to do that. No I agree and like I one thing you touched on earlier, which is like I think the reason why I really like, channel is that it's, it's a one card deck, effectively, it's kind of like like there's very few. It's it's kind of like I'm showing my age right here, but like, like an opposition. It's like you put that in the cube and then someone can build a deck around it, like, like a whole deck exists. Like they're much out of drawer. It's like a whole deck exists because channel exists. If you remove the channel, then the deck stop is just like one card just stops the whole thing existing. Basically. Exactly, exactly. Like no one's ever come up to you after a draft. I mean, like, dude, I drafted this sick tea night curator attack, you know, like, this is not the same with the show. Like, so let's cut that cards and set, you know, f with each card. Green, green, two drops. I think that one. So that's one that can go, no, I think that's where I think that's right. Fair. I'm just going to just bring this conversation to an end just because I think this will be good. This will be something that a lot of people listening to will want to know. James, for you, what is the best deck right now, given that again, there has been some changes. There's there's an individual card changes are going over and also all that changes. What do you think is the best deck or maybe better? What have you had the most success with in the current iterations of the cube? I think the cube is balanced enough at the moment where very the best deck is whatever is open. That's good. I've been winning a lot with blue control. I think it's in a very good spot for the move. Like you're sort of blue for card advantage and spells, and then you say whatever the colors give you access to the removal that you need. Because you need a lot of removal. I've been winning a lot with lower stacks, which very much so. I'll fall into that category as well. But I think, like. Be proactive like that place and busted fan for chops. Also really strong. I've not loved the combo decks as much for this season. I think Re-Animator is like, fine when it all comes together, but I'm kind of reluctant to commit to it early. Flashover or sneak attack, but I think still still works very well. So, I'm. They won't draft phase. If I'm going to draft combo. But yeah, I'd say my nice winning tacks have been like blue, plus some other colors with a lot of some naval. They're nice. And then kind of in line with that, in line with that, kind of like outside of power. What are you seeing as early picks right now? Are you like snapping off the prototype bombardiers? Is it the mannerly kind of what are you liking right now? Very early on. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, you should still be prioritizing super highly all v. Yeah, over busted modern horizon stuff, right? Like your prototype on the day is you're for failing us. The one thing these, v stuff you should stop off early because they can be great in basically every deck because they're very easy to slash. Like, false. You can smash in basically any color, similar with board side. If you're not moving below those buster cards, I think like the cheap interaction is is a fine place to start a draft. Like, I'm not that sad about first picking most of, like two mana counters. Oh, like a very powerful piece of them. Evolve like swords, I think is a strong first pick. Similar with, dismember because it just goes in every attack. Yeah. I think if you prioritize cheap, cheap interaction, you'll, you'll end up in some pretty good and very good decks. Nice. No. Like that. And then final question, James, if you were in charge of the cube, what would you change? Like it can be like specific cards or it can be like boosting up archetypes or swapping whole archetypes and of like like what? What would make you happier and like enjoy the quality more. I know this is more of a personal question than just like the general cube advice, but kind of like in terms of the state of the cube right now, as we as you went over, it is more creature based. That is kind of where magic has gone over the last couple of years, but kind of like, is there anything that stands out to you? It's kind of like either not being supported enough or kind of like just not. Or that's from a variety point of view you would like to see push pushed a bit more. Yeah, I think it would be. I think it would be fun to try and make stone work again. Listen, I don't know if it would be good enough adding back all the old stone stuff, but I think it would certainly be worth trying for an iteration. Because they very much, I think, did the thing where they trimmed a lot of fee cards for all the makes the deck work, and then were like, oh, looks done, doesn't work anymore. And then cut some cards, right. And it's like, yeah, it can work because you cut off small pieces. And I think there's like enough space in this cube for you. I don't think it's that hard to find cuts for, so I think it would be cool to try that again, because I think it's about adding that variety to make the cube playable. I like I think anybody who hasn't drafted the cube before is still going to find it very fun for their first bunch of drafts, but it's about making it viable, right? And I think that needs, I think the variety that some spell base combo decks adds is, is pretty important for that because yeah, at the moment, the combo decks, like the good combo decks of early mostly just, putting some giant creatures into play, which is, is fine. But, it's sort of a combo, but is is is that a reason why you think, you wouldn't go into reanimated too much too early? Because they're kind of the only really combo deck. The combo players are like, oh, that that's a reanimated card. I'm going to snap that. I'm going to force combo type things. It. Yeah, I think it's it's quite over drafted at the moment. And I think is there's also some very powerful graveyard tape that is, you can kind of pick up for free and then and it's, it can be very hard to beat. And not, it's not, it's not to say it's bad. It's, it's yeah, I'll still have play first pick of the animate because the animates good in all your black decks. I'm like, I'm less excited about plastic in tomb. And I would have been, at various points in the past, The other thing you could do, honestly, is just like Chuck time poll and demonic consultation investment and and, people can deal with it, you know, like, yeah, it's busted, but, you know, so if black slices. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a vintage cube like it is in the bracket of this is what we're doing. Let's give it a go. And it is something. But yeah, you could do like how long generally. Okay I'll keep seasons now James. Is it like a month. Is it six weeks? It's like a month. But they also just come around a lot more frequently than they used to. I it feels like it's up. Maybe not about half the time at the moment. Right. Okay. Yeah, it's probably online. Maybe even more than that. So specifically so if there's a set every two months. Well, yeah, I stack three months. Okay. That makes that that does track. Okay. Yeah. I mean it's fine, but it's it's definitely like it used to be kind of an event when it was up, but it was up for like two weeks every few months. And if you're like, oh, sick vintage, keep this up. I'm like, spend a bunch of evenings doing that. And now it's more like, I've got a free evening. Maybe this vintage give up. Yeah, probably. Cool. I'll play some, a for me, vintage group was generally more of a Christmas thing because it used to be on the holidays quite a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You say it was the holiday. Cute, but you about. But yeah. No, I think I think that keeps a lot of fun. It's just. Yeah, I think it would be. It would be cool. I think they have ways to add a bit more of like for experience. And that would be cool. Exactly. And I'm not saying like from, from, for me who's kind of really into like the nitty gritty, I'm more of the design of cube and kind of like what? And kind of shows I do like the fact they are trying to push new archetypes and yeah, yeah, I made the point earlier, but specifically because it's not just here are 20 new mythic set, but it's more here is a new archetype. Here is some cool stuff you can do with it. Look, ten three, ten, four kills. That is cool that that is interesting. And it does kind of. Yeah. Like like the the Powers Matt is one is something I could see myself trying at some point in the future. Like maybe not in its current format, but like again, it's the it's eventually this is the first pass at it. Maybe maybe with some more iterations, maybe we'll get something. But there's a that's a bit more character like as you mentioned, James, maybe we don't need mutagenic growth to make the archetype work. Maybe. Maybe it is just more ops or that kind of stuff like like there are there is some fine tuning we can do to make this work. And I think there is a kernel or something very cool there, and I think it just needs a bit of work to, a bit of work to work in higher power level cubes, but, but lesser power level cubes. I think it might already be there in the form that they've given us, that giving it to us. So from that, from that aspect, it's it was a cool update for me because I get to be like, oh, this is cool. This is new, this is interesting. I like this. So that was it. Definitely put. And it's definitely sort of put a few cards on the map I think like, the average is now a card which I am interested in putting in other cubes, you know, more safe than I was before. I have a spare one if you want one. James, give me a shout out to my take off a man. All right. Marvelous. So I think that's where we're going to leave it for today, James. Pleasure. That was a really good chat. Yeah. Thank you man, much. We should. Yeah. Always a pleasure. Nice. Well, that's going to do it for today. Do remember to give us a five star review, give us a thumbs up, tell a friend all that good stuff. Whatever positive affirmation you can give us would greatly help us grow the podcast, help us do cool, new and interesting things like bringing you an episode every week. Ooh, subtle change there. We love that. But yeah, that's going to do it for us. It's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from James. And until next time, we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.