With the holidays (hopefully) comes a little downtime, which means it's Cube season!

The Vintage Holiday Cube returns every holiday season to bless us with some wonderful Cube action to end the year, but it's also a great time to look back on the recent releases and update our own Cubes too! There have been a lot of Magic cards released this year, but only a fraction are good enough to make it into the pantheon of The Cube.

I'll be viewing the cards today from the lens of my own Cube, which is a 520 card Legacy+ power level Cube. The full list can be found here. The main goal of my Cube is to produce decks that are lean, powerful, and synergistic, trying to emulate the feel of Constructed. My Cube has a much lower mana curve and higher concentration of synergy cards than most. It's a little out of date, but I did a video series where I go over my entire Cube and design philosophies here.

With that being said, let's get started!

Dominaria United

Ah yes, the elephant in the room.

When it comes to demoralizing top end threats, Sheoldred, the Apocolypse is high on the list of cards where you say "I can't kill that, therefor I can't win." To be completely honest, I've never liked cards like that in that they're super polarized; if you can cleanly kill Sheoldred it's awful, but if you can't and plan on playing a few more turns it can be very hard to win - there's very little middle ground.

Still, the Cube is meant to be the home for very powerful cards, and Sheoldred fits the bill. It's interesting to see how it will play among many of Magic's most powerful cards as we are usually used to see it in Standard or Pioneer.

I imagine for most Cubes, Leyline Binding will be a slam dunk. It's probably the most powerful domain card ever printed, currently seeing heavy play in Modern as well as Pioneer and Standard. It's passable even in a three-color deck, but scales up well in heavy multicolored decks while playing amazing with Triome and fetchland-based mana bases.

There's just one issue - I don't have Triomes in my Cube.

I think Triomes make mana just a little too easy while too strongly encouraging playing a million colors and splashing into a midrange muckfest. It's a personal choice for my Cube, which will ultimately leave Leyline Binding riding the pine, but for any Cube that supports the Triome cycle Leyline Binding is a slam dunk.

Evolved Sleeper is an awesome take on the Figure of Destiny-style level up 1-drops, helping out a color that has historically struggled with playable one-drops (Carnophage anyone?).

The kind of card that's useful on turn one or turn ten, Evolved Sleeper is also just fun to play with as you plan out how you'd like to sink your mana into it around your other spells. It's also just as good as a midrange threat as it is an aggro threat, which gives it some nice flexibility, while also being a human, which is relevant in my Cube.

Evolved Sleeper feels like a pretty easy inclusion.

And that's mostly it for Dominaria United. There are some other interesting cards like Serra Paragon, Tolarian Terror, and Cut Down, but for the most part they aren't really up to snuff on power level.

The Brothers' War

Loran of the Third Path is a slam dunk.

Reclamation Sage is already a super reasonable Cube card, as the Cube is just rife with good artifacts and enchantments, but swapping it to a color that needs the help, giving it a relevant creature type, an extra keyword, as well as an ability that creates interesting game states, and all in the color that's best at blinking stuff?

It's hard not to imagine Loran of the Third Path being in every Cube from now until the end of time.

It used to be that every time they printed a new 2/1 for one to go alongside Savannah Lions it was an automatic inclusion into the Cube. Now the poor Lion has been put out to pasture, and 2/1s for one are mostly a dime a dozen.

However, they're still an important part of most Cubes, and my Cube especially because of how lean I keep the Cube's mana curve. Recruitment Officer isn't that much of an upgrade over Usher of the Fallen, but it's the right creature type and features a mana sink ability that doesn't require it to get into combat, which gives it the nod.

Not every card in the Cube needs to be a Tinker!

Young Pyromancer has been in the Cube forever, but where Third Path Iconoclast is more difficult to cast, it gains right back in flexibility.

Third Path Iconoclast will be just as good as Young Pyromancer in your Izzet spells decks, but will also play well in artifact decks as well as decks playing lots of planeswalkers or enchantments. There's a very strong artifact theme in my Cube, which both means that it will be easy to trigger Third Path Iconoclast, as well as the tokens being artifacts mattering for stuff like Cranial Plating or Arcbound Ravager.

I expect Third Path Iconoclast to overperform, despite its somewhat awkward mana cost.

This may seem like an odd one, but Fallaji Archaeologist does a lot of good things.

Something like Strategic Planning is a sweet card filtering effect that does awesome stuff for graveyard decks, but just isn't quite good enough on pure rate, but once you get a very relevant body to go along with it that really ups the ante. Whether you're a control deck looking for an Augur of Bolas type effect for an early blocker, a combo deck looking for quick defense and filtering, or a graveyard deck looking to dump goodies in the bin, Fallaji Archaeologist does it all pretty well.

Being able to grab any non-creature spell while also doing graveyard stuff puts this lightyears ahead of Augur of Bolas, so I'm gonna give Fallaji Archaeologist a spin and see how it goes.

Otherwise, that's mostly it for The Brothers' War. There are a ton of potential adds that I may test out that I don't quite think make the cut - Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, Misery's Shadow, Mishra's Research Desk, Cityscape Leveler, Portal to Phyrexia, and Simian Simulacrum - but I think they mostly fall a little short. Still worth experimenting with though.

But Wait, There's More!

Wizards of the Coast released far more than just Standard sets this year, and there are a few standouts from Commander products that deserve a look for Cube as well.

Sure, Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes may just look like the "silly Commander hamster planeswalker," but the reality is that it's actually one of the most powerful planeswalkers ever printed. Yes, you heard that right.

Minsc & Boo is an endless source of threats, can attack for four and pressure planeswalkers right away, can kill things, draw cards, and more. It plays super well in sacrifice decks, giving you endless fodder and providing the Fling effect, while also just being super powerful on rate in midrange or aggressive decks. It has been seeing a ton of play in Legacy, the only format where it is legal, and may end up being one of the most impactful cards to enter the Cube this year.

Go get your hamster token now, because Minsc & Boo should probably be in just about every Cube.

Our last card of the day is one that looks very interesting but I'm not entirely sure how it will play out.

Scholar of New Horizons is another take on the Land Tax-style effect in White, but does so at a pretty reasonable rate and payoff. A 2-drop is the right spot for this, it's a human and comes at a decent rate, and is a repeatable effect which is super cool, and lastly it can find any plains so it can find duals as well.

The issue with a card like this however is what deck wants it? It's not really an aggressive card, but also not really a control card, and White isn't really a big midrange color, but it does do cool things. How about removing counters from Dark Depths or cumulative upkeep counters? This is one I will try but am very unsure about. Making sure every card in the Cube has decks that want it is very important.

Cube4Charity!

Overall, it has been a pretty good year for Cube, with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty also adding many interesting cards to the format as well, but the most exciting part is happening early next week!

That's right, it's year four of #Cube4Charity!

We've once again got a star-studded lineup with Hall of Famers and Cube luminaries ready to battle it out for 48 hours to try and get the most Magic Online Vintage Cube trophies as well as raising money for some great charities!

Make sure you've got your multi-twitch ready as it all starts the evening of the 26th and goes for 48 hours straight. You're not going to want to miss it!