Modern as a format has gotten a lot better recently and is considered by many to be in the best place that it has ever been as format. The fact remains that it is still incredibly tough to test for, lying right in the middle of a Goldilocks zone of frustration. It has you testing at any reasonable level of preparation around 15 different archetypes and yet still showing up to compete in a Grand Prix and playing against 3+ decks you haven’t prepared for.

That said, what can we expect from its Magic Online Cube counterpart?

The Vintage Cube offers an overpowered experience with silly mana ramp, unbeatable starts, viable storm decks and insanely high power level.

The Legacy Cube offers more deckbuilding freedom and room for creativity whilst keeping handholds in place for those experiencing Cube for the first time.

The Modern Cube offers Thriving Grubs… and Bloodwater Entity…

I’m not going to go in depth on each choice within the Cube and pick them apart but cmon Wizards, what are we doing?

Thriving Grubs presumably it is in here to give Mono-Red a 3/2 2 drop but it isn’t better than Ash Zealot which doesn’t even feature in the Cube. Maybe it was chosen to provide some energy synergy with the few other cards in the Cube that care about that, but we’re not playing a 2 mana 2/1 so that we can give our Aethersphere Harvester lifelink twice more throughout the game.

I get to some extent Wizards want new cards to highlighted and that’s why they put them in but if we could restrict that to just the good cards, that’d be great. We’re already playing with these cards in the Draft queues. Cube is supposed to a welcome change of pace before we get enjoy a completely new Limited environment.

The 3 colour cards (outside of Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death) are limited to Nicol Bolas – big splashy game-ender, Siege Rhino – very powerful, Modern playable and Bant Charm. Surely that slot could have been used better. It’s hardly a card worth making the effort to splash for.

Then there’s sideboard cards like Ancient Grudge. I don’t want to get rid of sideboarding from the Cube. It isn’t like there is an artifact deck that is overtly powerful that requires Ancient Grudge in order to defeat it and once again, that slot could have been used better to support archetypes that needed it. When sideboarding is nuanced and matchup dependent, it makes one feel clever and is skill testing. With cards like Ancient Grudge, it stops at “Does my opponent have an unbeatable artifact/a very high density of artifacts?” When it comes to drafting these cards, it just boils down to “Is there anything good in the pack for me to take for my deck? Okay, then I guess I’ll take the sideboard card.”

So how can we make the Modern Cube better?

I believe it should always be the best cards in the format with a few enablers to various strategies that make them more viable.

Out:

 Sideboard cards

Underpowered cards

Some Planeswalkers

In:

More archetype support e.g. for Reanimator

More archetype diversity

It is quite tough for the Legacy and Vintage Cube to accurately imitate their eponymous format given that the power level is so astronomically high and so much of that is dependent on having 4 of the same card. But in Modern, where the power level is lower and the dependence on 4-ofs is less pronounced it should, in theory, be easier to replicate. Modern Jund for example, throw a bunch or removal spells, discard, premium threats and Lilianas into a 40 card list and it is quite close. Splinter Twin, whilst banned in Modern, is another archetype that fits this mold quite well. Sure you have to stretch for the last couple of cards but they are generally on theme and cohesive. So why can’t we extend this on to other major/classic Modern archetypes.

Affinity perhaps could be a possible inclusion. This uncharted territory so it might not be smooth sailing. The experimentation surely can’t be as catastrophic as the inclusion of Vampire Tribal in the Legacy Cube back in 2005.

Artifacts matter, whilst not completely parasitic like Splice and Energy, is still fairly narrow and it is likely that the majority of cards in the Modern deck would only be playable in the corresponding archetype in Cube but within it they would be extremely powerful much like the Modern Masters draft sets themselves. The starting list would probably include:

Arcbound Ravager
Cranial Plating
Etched Champion
Master of Etherium
Steel Overseer
Mox Opal
Springleaf Drum
Vault Skirge
Porcelain Legionnaire (already in)
Tempered Steel
Galvanic Blast
Dispatch
Ornithopter
Memnite
Signal Pest
Frogmite
Blinkmoth Nexus
Inkmoth Nexus
Darksteel Citadel
Ancient Den etc. (?)
Skullclamp is probably a step too far for the Modern Cube and this first draft of possible cards to go in definitely isn’t definitive. There is a tension that exists between Arcbound Ravager/Cranial Plating/Master of Etherium that calls for cheap artifacts and then the fact that you’re massively diluting the power level. Perhaps the Faerie Mechanist/Esperzoa approach from Modern Masters 1 would be well suited. If you’ve cracked the code, let Wizards know.

Rant Over!

If you disagree let me know in the comments below.