Using my CubeTutor change log as a guide, I'm going to reflect on the biggest changes 2017 brought to my cube. I'll close the article with the top card added from each of 2017's expansions.
February - Removed painlands
After about a year of inclusion, I didn't find the painlands to be worth breaking peasant for. Yes, they were good, but somehow the opposite of my expectation happened. I added them so aggro decks could have good manafixing without having to resort to EtB tapped lands. However, the painlands also enabled control decks to splash without slowing down their mana base. In a way, the painlands made aggro perform a little worse than before because control decks became more powerful overall.
February - Fleshed out double strike and +1/+1 counters
After adding another handful of cards for both archetypes, it looks like they're here to stay. Finally.
March - We finally get a true Anthem!
Glorious Anthem is one of those cards the peasant community seems to agree upon: this can safely be downgraded. Apparently, Wizards agreed. In a way. Still, it feels good to finally be able to include a true anthem in Gaea's Anthem. It might not be the real thing, yet, but it's close.
Also, almost but not really Mystic Snake: Mystic Genesis.
September - More spells matter, pants, red graveyard, reanimate, haste enablers
Like with double strike and +1/+1 counters, 2017 brought support for a couple more of our favorite archetypes.
Top cards from sets released in 2017
These are not necessarily the best cards in a vacuum, but my personal picks for most awesome for my cube.
Aether Revolt (Jan): Ridgescale Tusker
Modern Masters 2017 (Mar): Gaea's Anthem
Amonkhet (Apr): Scaled Behemoth
Hour of Devastation (Jul): Burning-Fist Minotaur
Ixalan (Oct): Chart a Course
Commander 2017 (Aug): Heirloom BladeIconic Masters (Nov): Mahamoti Djinn
Unstable (Dec): untested
Conclusion
2017 was a year of solidifying existing archetypes in my cube. After a couple big (archetype) overhauls in 2015 and 2016, the cube felt like it was in a very good place.
On the one hand, no big changes can be considered a good thing. We've found a good balance between power and archetypes, and there are enough different things to do without things feeling super hard to pull of.
On the other hand, no big changes means less fresh things to get really excited about. When deciding the top cards per set for 2017, from Amonkhet, Hour and Ixalan all the cards where solid but no showstoppers. I realize not every year can bring an Enchantress-level of excitement and overhaul to the cube, but I would've loved a little more spice.
This translated directly into less cube time. The past year, this resulted in a stint of playing more Commander, helping my friend build an Urza block cube (check it out on CubeTutor!) and drafting that a bunch of times, checking out Eternal card game.
I'm hoping 2018 lets me continue and solidify certain archetypes, while also bringing something new to fit in (Berserk has been included already). I'll also continue to look for hidden gems in older blocks, in the hope of finding something unexpectedly awesome.
Also, keep on coming with the downgrades.
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