Some people are against Cubes having obvious first picks- this is largely the most common complaint with powered Cubes. If we're just playing for fun it doesn't make a lot of sense to include decisions that are just wrong. I personally loathe having obvious last picks much more, but both ideas support the general premise that Cubes should have tight power bands.

Earlier this week, Danny Brown bemoaned the changes that Randy Buehler has made to the Legacy Cube on MTGO. When I think about changes in terms of cards that I like, the changes irk me. I love me a Sulfuric Vortex or a Plow Under. Couple this with the fact that Jackal Pup was left in and I wonder, "What about MY nostalgia?"

Thinking about things this way, it's easy to be upset. That said, as adults in a civilized society I see it as our obligation to give people some benefit of the doubt. Some of my darlings are leaving, but Buehler is also explicitly cutting the traps and many of the fifteenth picks as well. Maybe you've had good experience with Show and Tell in this Cube, but I assure you that you're in the minority. So while some of my favorites are on the outs, they're taking some real turds with them, and ultimately this works towards making the Cube more balanced with fewer obvious choices.

There are some clear misses for me in the Legacy Cube update to be sure. While I think that the Vampires theme can actually work, I do agree that even if I ended up in that archetype that I would rarely want an Ascendant Evincar. That said, if we read Buehler's post it's clear that he's paying attention to both the decks that win a disproportionate percentage of the time as well as the ones that lose excessively. If I'm right about Evincar and it's a bottom 20 type card, then it will find its way on the outs.

Most importantly, what I like about these changes and their explanations are that unlike previous updates to the MTGO Cubes is that it seems that everything is moving in a clear direction without any examples of new cards being added "because they're new" that I can see. We're not there yet and I don't wholeheartedly endorse the "by the numbers" approach, but if updates continue on these lines then I see the Legacy Cube moving in a very positive direction. With all of the complaining that I had heard, I truly expected things to be dramatically worse.