Update-Bringing Back the Dead

A few updates ago, I made a mistake. I thought that it wasn’t a good idea to do re-animation in black. Instead, I wanted to run with the idea of Black devotion. Turns out that was a bad plan. I have updated my cube to bring back the cards that I cut without thinking it through enough.

Reanimating Reanimation

Back when I decided to cut my Reanimation theme from my cube, as I said above, there was a mistake made. As I evaluated my black section to decide where I wanted to put my devotion cards, I noticed that there were a lot of re-animation cards that I never ever used. So, I decided to cut the lot of them (with only a few exceptions). The mistake was that I thought that I needed to remove all of those cards when that was simply not the case. The cards that were doing badly were the really narrow enabler cards in my black section. The best example of this type of card was Buried Alive. That is a fantastic card in dedicated reanimation decks. It is also completely pointless in any other deck. Now that I see that, I have decided to bring back a few of the targets and also bring back Living Death. I have a few cards that may need to come in down the line to support the archetype more if that becomes necessary.

Changes

All changes are listed in terms of “Old card > New Card”

• Mikaeus, the Lunarch > Fiendslayer Paladin: Mikaeus is a great card, but I didn’t find him to be useful very often. I am currently pushing a life gain sub-theme in white and Fiendslayer Paladin should fit that very well. That said, a lot of people cut Paladin en-Vec for Fiendslayer back when M14 was released. I will continue to run both cards.
• Youthful Knight > Knight of Meadowgrain: The Youthful Knight has long served as a great card, unfortunately, his time is passed. So, along with Fiendslayer Paladin, Knight of Meadowgrain is going to help with the life gain push.
• Keening Apparition > Soldier of the Pantheon: I like Keening Apparition but Soldier of the Pantheon is another 2/1 for 1 and that is really hard for me to pass up.
• Azorius Arrester > Gideon Jura: My original build of my cube contained Gideon as my one white planeswalker. I cut him because I didn’t understand what the point of Gideon was. I now get it and want to run him to give White control decks an option.
• Hands of Binding > Mulldrifter: Hands of Binding didn’t really play out as well as I had hoped when I decided to test it in my last update. Mulldrifter is a card that is too awesome to not be in my cube.
• Guiltfeeder > Pestilence: I’ve always liked Pestilence as an idea for a deck and wanted to give it a try in my cube. I don’t think I’ll need to run much in the way of support for it so this should be good. Guiltfeeder is a good card. Unfortunately, it is just outclassed by the other cards near it. That has resulted in it being left out of most decks.
• Erebos, God of the Dead > Living Death: Erebos replaced Living Death when I decided to cut Reanimation and add Devotion… Seems fitting that Living Death would return the favor.
• Lazav, Dimir Mastermind > Far//Away > Entomb: This is a sort of “three-way trade” to get Entomb back into my cube. I have cut Lazav and moved Far//Away from my black section to my Dimir section to make way for Entomb. Somehow, I never realized that Entomb can put anything into the graveyard. That is awesome.
• Grey Merchant of Asphodel > Diregraf Ghoul: Devotion is being cut and this card is only good in devotion decks. Diregraf ghoul is going to give another cheap creature for the x/B aggro decks.
• Skeletal Scrying > Curse of Shallow Graves: Skeletal Scrying hasn’t really panned out the way I had hoped it would. Curse of Shallow Graves should be fun to test out and see if I can get more tokens going in black.
• Sorin Markov > Liliana of the Veil: Not sure why I keep thinking that my cube doesn’t need Liliana of the Veil… but it does.
• Necropolis Regent > Kokusho, the Evening Star: I keep thinking that Necropolis Regent is actually going to be a good creature for my cube… I keep being wrong about that. So, I am now adding Kokusho to help with the reanimation theme in black.
• Urabrask the Hidden > Greater Gargadon: There isn’t really anything wrong with Urabrask. Whenever I am looking for a red creature to put in at that point in the curve, he is always at the top of the list. Unfortunately, he is often the first to get cut when I want to try something new… like giving extra support to my Wildfire decks.
• Earthquake > Jokulhaups: Earthquake fills a similar role to what Jokulhaups will do. Both of them were in to sort of support my Wildfire archetype. I think that Jokulhaups will do it in a more interesting fashion (even though it won’t take down Planeswalkers).
• Lotus Cobra > Sylvan Caryatid: Lotus Cobra has failed to impress me. In fact, I don’t really care for it at all. Sylvan Caryatid should give the ability to block those early beater creatures while I am trying to ramp to… whatever it is I am trying to ramp to.
• Stillmoon Cavalier > Sorin, Lord of Innistrad: I like the Cavalier a lot and I may look for a way to work him into either my white section or black section in the future. For now though, I need to have something that will support both my life-gain in white and my “pay life for cards” in black.
• Sword of the Paruns > Skullclamp: Sword of the Paruns rarely makes it into decks. Skullclamp is an awesome card that really should be in my cube, so I am bringing it back.
• Mask of Memory > Bonesplitter: Sometimes an effect like Mask of Memory is nice, but I think my cube needs the consistency of the Bonesplitter more. This is another case of a returning card.
• Lightning Greaves > Mutavault: I have never really liked the Greaves, but somehow it always missed being cut. In this case, I am wanting to get Mutavault into the cube and the Greaves were not able to hide behind some other card that was likely better.

On the Watchlist…

My last update did not include a watchlist due to how large the update was. In this case, I have a few cards that I am thinking of using that did not make it into this particular update.

• Ghostly Prison: I am trying to get white into more of a control position and this card might be just the card to help me get there. It would work well with Sphere of Safety as well so that would be nice.
• Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Zombify: These cards could be added if I find that I need more reanimation in my cube.
• Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni: For some reason, I wasn’t aware of this awesome card until right before I finalized the update I was doing. Rather than do lots of work to get this into the update, I’ve decided to wait until after Born of the Gods and see what that set brings me before adding this card.
• Fireslinger: Not the most impressive creature, but I feel like my red section could use an extra ‘utility’ creature or two and this one would fill that role nicely.
• Dragon Fodder: I am already running Krenko’s Command and this card is basically the same thing. Depending on how I see Purphoros being played, I may add this in to give some extra power to decks that want to get lots of things onto the battlefield.
• Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker: This card is so big and awesome that I really want to try it out. I haven’t decided how I want to classify him in my cube though so adding him in will have to wait.
• Kitchen Finks: Right now, I am running Ready//Willing in my last Selesnya spot. I am still waiting to see how that card plays out so I may be adding this one in once that has been decided.
• Mishra’s Factory: This is a good useful card. I like this type of thing so if it happens that I have the space, I would like to add the factory in.
• Equilibrium: I cut this card a while back because I didn’t think it was doing enough. Now, with my blue tempo decks getting so much better (thanks in large part to Thassa and Master of Waves), I am thinking of giving this card another shot.

Conclusion

There it is. Another update in the books. I am hoping to avoid any further updates until after Born of the Gods is released. Just to give my cube some time to settle. This particular update did teach me the value of looking back at my previous cuts to find good cards. Even in the couple of test drafts that I have done since this update, I have found Black to be a much more appealing color to play.