MTG Salvation

Feldon's Cane and Tormod's Crypt are two very good cards with very specific abilities that might not be useful in every game. Some colors - particularly green, blue, and black have some similar effects - Bojuka Bog is pretty much an auto-include in any deck that runs black, and we now have Agent of Erebos. The most recent Commander set also gave us Angel of Finality which is great in a blink deck.

Green and blue can mimic Feldon's Cane in cards like Loaming Shaman, Piper's Melody, Primal Command, Psychic Spiral, and the Time Spiral-esque cards - though those effect both players.

My question is, do people run Feldon's Cane and Tormod's Crypt ever? Do they find the cards aren't always useful? Do people ever wish they were running them in a game? What other cards to you run that do similar things?

Tormod's Crypt is great, I run it in my blue decks and any deck with trading post. Feldon's I haven't touched in this format because it exiles itself and I prefer cards that can be used more than once generally.

Tormod's Crypt is worth it just so you can transmute for it with Tolaria West, but the Trinket Mage and Academy Ruins synergy plus free cost to hold up counterspell mana pushes it over the top for me more often than not if I'm playing blue. Otherwise, it's always at least a solid inclusion.

Feldon's Cane is more exotic, and I've only seen a few decks I liked it in, and they tended to be combo decks. I wouldn't mind hearing how people here think it compares to Elixir of Immortality, which I see mentioned a lot more, although still not that much.

I'm confused - why are we comparing feldon's cane and tormod's crypt? One exiles an opponents grave (99% of the time) and the other can only target your grave, and reshuffles it. One is a hate card, and one is a really bad card.

grave hate cards are useful and strong (thought i prefer the likes of nihil spellbomb for the cantrip) whether they exile or reshuffle, but graveyard hate on yourself only (a la feldon's cane) is really really bad.

Am I missing something here? They're basically totally different effects.

Feldon's Cane is a beautiful card in my Scion of the Ur-Dragon voltron-esque deck. It's a beautiful thing to be able to get the double use out of dragon tyrant, skittles, etc. Not sure I'd use it much otherwise, but it's a perfect fit in that deck.

Oh, and for the record, I run both the Cane and the Elixir in that deck.

Most often, I prefer Scrabbling Claws or Relic of Progenitus to Crypt.

Quote from DirkGently

I'm confused - why are we comparing feldon's cane and tormod's crypt? One exiles an opponents grave (99% of the time) and the other can only target your grave, and reshuffles it. One is a hate card, and one is a really bad card.

grave hate cards are useful and strong (thought i prefer the likes of nihil spellbomb for the cantrip) whether they exile or reshuffle, but graveyard hate on yourself only (a la feldon's cane) is really really bad.

Am I missing something here? They're basically totally different effects.

You're right, they are two completely different cards, but they're similar in that they're both "Specific Abilities on a stick" in the form of artifacts that are one mana or less, one defends against milling while the other defends against recursion strategies, both abilities appear on other cards in less/more effective ways, and it seems like running either in a deck might be a silver bullet against certain decks, but you might not always need it. My question was how many people run them, and if they don't do they feel compelled to run other cards in their place?

I get that they're not the same card, but I guess I see them as being similar in their design.

I run Feldon's Cane, Thran Foundry and Elixir of Immortality in my Karador, Ghost Chieftain Dredge/Self-Mill deck, as a foil to commonly played graveyard hate like Bojuka Bog and Relic of Progenitus that can come down out of the blue late game when half my library is in my yard. Are they the most optimal cards? Absolutely not, but having that effect ready and able to be activated at instant speed has saved my bacon on multiple occasions, and the redundancy of multiple copies is appreciated, especially in a deck as un-tuned and durdly (read: tutor light) as I've made Karador.

Aside from that narrow usage, however, I'd not sure when else I'd run the Cane and the Foundry, if ever.

Feldon's cane was on the restricted list for a long time. It has a powerful effect and had it's place in commander decks that need the recursion. I have it in 4 of my 22'

I love the Cane, and I run the Crypt often if my strategy isn't particularly graveyard-dependent. (Actually, the Crypt works better as a rattlesnake than anything.)

As an aside, my current hidden gem is Nihil Spellbomb. It's a one-sided Crypt that also cantrips. As an artifact, it has synergies with Sun Titan and all the things that love artifacts.

I play Tormod's Crypt in Daretti and it rocks. I use it mostly as a safety trigger, but it also doubles as a free Darksteel Forge or something stupidly expensive.

I run Tormod's Crypt in decks with Trinket Mage

I run the cane in several of my decks, as I am passionately fond of my graveyard and face off against grave-hate regularly.