One of my goals for the new year is to write more, but the day job has been a bitter morass where dreams go to die, so we have to stretch our linguistic legs with unexplored topics.

With these seasons of both the latest MTGO and Arena cubes wrapping up, I thought I'd write up some of the decks I drafted.

3-0 Grixis Untomb

AKA master breacher.

This was a pretty scrungy Breach/Brainfreeze deck. The combo's generally played out well in the cube, but with so little card draw, we were mostly just counting on luck here.

Entombing for Brainfreeze/LED was actually pretty real. The surprise MVP though was Master of Death, who helped dig while soaking up damage.

As you can see from the sideboard, we bobbed around a bit before settling into the combo (RIP Ragavan). Breach can work as a side plan in an otherwise functional deck, but ours was anemic enough that we had to go all-in on staying alive and Breaching.

3-0 Dimir Unicyle

AKA wheel-less wheel.

The plan here was supposed to be wheeling into card draw punishers, but with only the single Echo, that didn't fire off too often. Thankfully, Sheoldred, Orcish Bowmasters, and The One Ring were messed up enough to carry the deck home.

I was kind of waffling on including a Flash/reanmiate package too. Still not sure if it was worth running, but I've been bit by enough awkward reanimator hands that I elected for a more consistent midrange plan.

Just to shout out my last opponent here - they had a super cool lands deck that blew up all of mine. The last game was a real nail-biter and came down to us winning a single turn before they did. Thanks Doc Oc!

2-1 Lurrus Legends

How many drafts have I trainwrecked on Lurrus? How many more will I throw away? Alas and alack.

I'm not the first person to point out that Wan Shi Tong, Librarian is a pretty good Magic card, but it's been awesome for Lurrus decks.

Another one I'll call out here is Basim Ibn Ishaq. This is a sore thumb in the cube list, but I will say it performed really well here and I'm curious if I should be taking it higher. Even one trigger's probably enough for him to earn his keep.

7-2 Frogwalk

An absolute pile, but if you slap enough pieces of power together, it'll get the job done. This deck is the kind of slop I hate, so of course it's the one that went the distance.

The most egregious thing here is Leovold + Wheel. Even now, after the seven wins, I think it was wrong to play them. If I had to run this back, I'd probably swap for the Questing Druid and Chandra just to dig deeper to the good stuff.

7-1 Naya Fourdrops

Closed out the season with a winning agro deck.

Between the lack of early plays and some junky fillers (Tireless Tracker, Endurance), I'll admit I'm surprised this deck went the distance. I guess an assertive game plan and a little luck gets the job done.

The curve is definitely heavy, but a mox helps and sticking any of the fours basically wins the game. If I'm in the Boros seat, I'll spec on any green lands in case Minsc and Boo show up and they sure delivered.

On the whole, I think the adjustments to the arena cube were really positive and I'm looking forward to next season!