Winter Vintage Cube Polish Update – February 2024

Posted on Feb 16, 2024

Greetings, Cubers! For the last iteration of the Magic Online Vintage Cube, we introduced our plan to offer Vintage Cube more often, and with a new cadence that includes four major iterations a year, each followed by a smaller “polish pass” iteration the month after. We also discussed our plan to rotate more archetypes in and out of the Cube to keep things fresh and to offer a broader range of strategies throughout the year.

One thing we learned from the holiday run is that while it’s correct to offer more Vintage Cube, it’s not correct to run that much consecutively, particularly without any revisions. In December we ran a Spotlight Vintage Cube for two weeks preceding five weeks of the Magic Online Vintage Cube. Seven consecutive weeks of Vintage Cube, five with the same list, proved too much in a row. For future iterations, the “polish pass” of the December Magic Online Vintage Cube will be in January after a week or two off instead of the February slot it’s occupying this year, and we don’t plan to run a Spotlight Vintage Cube back-to-back with the Magic Online Vintage Cube again.

The iteration of the Cube we are sharing with you today represents the polish pass on the major revision we ran in December and January, which means there are no major archetype rotations and a smaller number of changes overall. The curation of a minor revision is focused on refining and polishing the archetypes introduced in the quarterly revision, as well as adding cards from sets that were released since that revision. Also, it allows us to correct course on some individual cards, whether cutting an experiment that didn’t pan out or bringing back a fan-favorite that met the axe last time. The goal is for it to feel like a better version of the previous iteration and not a significantly different play experience.

(For those of you maintaining tabletop versions of our Cube, waiting to build the minor revision to the major update is a nice way to keep the update work to four revisions a year in the face of a growing number of annual Vintage Cube iterations!)

So, what worked and what didn’t in Vintage Cube over the holidays? Check out the design comments in the changelist below for details on every swap we made and gear up for another run of the Magic Online Vintage Cube from February 21^st through March 6^th!

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Color	Card Out	Color	Card In	Design Notes
Black	Contagion	Black	Cut Down	Contagion was lackluster outside of some potent individual interactions, plus we are cutting one of its best interactions in Vial Smasher, the Fierce. So we are bringing in Cut Down for the role of cheap, consistent, small-creature control.
Black	Putrid Imp	Black	Unearth	Narrow discard outlets like Putrid Imp are becoming less necessary for supporting reanimation strategies as more options continue to see print. As fellow Cube enthusiast S7ra7egis7 likes to say, "Impin' ain't easy!" So instead of supporting reanimation with a weak discard outlet, we'll add the LSV-suggested Unearth, a card that has been sitting on the "maybe" list for a while. The quality and number of targets for the effect have both gone up in the Cube, so it's definitely worth a shot!
Black	Vampire Hexmage	Black	Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia	Vampire Hexmage really only has one purpose these days - to combo with Dark Depths. It can still get rid of Planeswalkers, but as a sorcery-speed BB, it wasn't great for that purpose. It's the card we should have cut for Tourach, Dread Cantor last time. So we are bringing Jadar back to bolster cards that love regular token fuel like Yawgmoth, Gut, and the next card on this list.
Blue	Hedron Crab	Blue	Stern Scolding	The increased support for the Lands archetype had its fans and its detractors, but even the fans were skeptical of the narrower support cards like Hedron Crab, so we are pulling back in that department for this polish pass. Some players were able to live the combo dream of Hedron Crab/Fastbond/bounceland, so we will cross that off the bucket list and swap it out for Stern Scolding, a one-mana counterspell that hits roughly 70% of creatures in the Cube.
Blue	Intuition	Blue	Phantasmal Image	While Intuition did some good things with Sevinne's Reclamation and Underworld Breach, it was ultimately a little too narrow. Phantasmal Image is a fun, powerful card that has been sorely missed by some, so we're bringing it back.
Blue	Lose Focus	Blue	Memory Lapse	Lose Focus didn't underperform, but the nostalgic Memory Lapse feels like a better Vintage Cube fit in the 1U-Counterspell department. Sometimes a pseudo-Time Walk is even better than Counterspell itself!
Blue	Mind's Desire	White	Sunfall	Storm can lose a payoff and still function, so we will bench Mind's Desire for now and rebalance the colors a bit with the swap. Vintage Cube is more focused on creatures these days, so a Wrath effect that exiles everything and leaves behind an artifact that turns into a threat could be good enough at five mana. Let's find out!
Blue	Seal of Removal	Blue	Dress Down	Seal of Removal has been reasonably effective in its results, but can feel unexciting to run and cast, so we will swap it out for a different interactive, self-sacrificing enchantment. Dress Down is more narrow, but it is a great foil to The Initiative, and is not too shabby against any creature whose major value is in its enters-the-battlefield effect. It can also prevent negative ETBs on your own creatures from triggering as well, plus it has a decent floor of cycling for two mana. While we do not expect it to be an all-star in the Cube overall, we expect it will have some all-star interactions, especially for a late-pick card.
Blue	Shark Typhoon	Blue	Tishana's Tidebinder	There's nothing wrong with the powerful, shark-spitting natural disaster, but we want to give Tishana's Tidebinder a trial run. There are lots of powerful abilities to be countered in Vintage Cube, and leaving a reasonable body behind gives this card enough potential to warrant the test drive.
Blue	Unctus, Grand Metatect	Blue	Forensic Gadgeteer	Unctus is one of the biggest misses of the last update. Forensic Gadgeteer arrives just in time to tag in for Unctus with an on-theme alternative for fueling artifact strategies that also goes infinite with Basalt Monolith!
Colorless	Andúril, Flame of the West	Colorless	Kaldra Compleat	Andúril didn't see much play despite the highest density of aggressive legendary creatures the Cube has had, so we're bringing back Kaldra Compleat - one of the community's most requested cards we cut from the last iteration.
Colorless	Heart of Kiran	White	Leonin Relic-Warder	The "Robots" package wasn't successful enough to warrant a return in the next major revision to this Cube in March, so some of the worst performers are being polished away here. We are adding back another way for white to answer artifacts, which are at a high level in this iteration even by Vintage Cube standards.
Colorless	Mishra's Factory	Colorless	City of Traitors	Mishra's Factory is familiar and iconic, but even the mono-colored aggressive strategies benefit more from a boost in mana than the possibility of making extra attackers and blockers out of their mana base.
Colorless	Patchwork Automaton	Colorless	Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender	While Patchwork Automaton wasn't terrible, it's a dream best lived in a non-singleton format. Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender doesn't grow quite as quickly, but Ginger's starting power and lifegain option make it a card that can go into many more decks.
Colorless	Roaming Throne	Colorless	Chromatic Star	Roaming Throne deserves a nomination for the Screenshot Award but wasn't powerful enough to earn must-include status. Chromatic Star doesn't serve any specific purpose but is one of those "glue" pieces that just brings things together nicely.
Colorless	Skysovereign, Consul Flagship	Colorless	Relic of Progenitus	While Skysovereign did more work than Heart of Kiran and added another dimension to Workshop decks, it didn't warrant keeping. Bringing back Relic of Progenitus provides some additional ways to interact with graveyards, and it's hard to go too wrong with cheap artifacts that replace themselves in Vintage Cube.
Colorless	Sundering Titan	Colorless	Kozilek, Butcher of Truth	Despite the prevalence of Triomes, Sundering Titan is making it into fewer and fewer decks these days. With a myriad of infinite mana combos and the potential counterplay to Brain Freeze, O.G. Kozilek is in a good spot for this iteration.
Colorless	Wurmcoil Engine	Rakdos	Talisman of Indulgence	We're saying "See you later" to another old friend in Wurmcoil Engine, which has been underwhelming lately even while doing its thing. With Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast returning to the mix, we're adding back the Talisman of Indulgence for support.
Green	Eternal Witness	Green	Regrowth	Green is crowded with three-mana creatures and is light on noncreature spells in general, so Eternal Witness hits the bench in favor of the classic non-creature version of the effect for now.
Green	Life from the Loam	Green	Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth	Life from the Loam has a place in some decks but has been a bit narrow and lackluster, so it is making room for a utility land that plays nicely with Dark Depths, Rofellos, Nissa, and Knight of the Reliquary.
Green	Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth	Green	Worldspine Wurm	Ojer had its chance, but it was ultimately a little too weak and conditional. We pulled Worldspine Wurm last time for concern of being "unfun powerful" with Flash, but community feedback in support of the combo has us reuniting them in this iteration.
Green	Oracle of Mul Daya	Green	Cavalier of Thorns	As more and more powerful creatures have been printed, the Oracle has gone from "early pick" to "a little slow, small, and expensive." Cavalier of Thorns should perform a similar role in supporting the Lands archetype while also providing fodder for Uro and a beefy body to boot.
Green	Spelunking	Green	Oath of Druids	Spelunking was pretty clunking ... uh, clunky. We originally cut Oath of Druids as a marginal, tough-to-build-around card. But because it takes up just a single slot in the 540, the opportunity cost to include plus its iconic status make it worth bringing back.
Green	The Weatherseed Treaty	Green	Legolas's Quick Reflexes	The Weatherseed Treaty is also leaving as a marginal card in the Domain archetype. Green is low on interaction and Legolas's Quick Reflexes seems flexible and powerful, so we will give it a shot!
Gruul	Questing Druid	Red	Shrapnel Blast	We were hoping for a lot more out of Questing Druid, but it proved difficult to put to effective use. We will try a different experiment with Shrapnel Blast in an iteration with solid artifact support for Red.

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Winter Vintage Cube Polish Update – February 2024