MTG Salvation

So, is a splashable, slower red Phyrexian arena worth playing? How about a way to use your own board wipes to kill your opponenent? Four is a very tight spot, but I like the versatility this card offers. Thoughts?

Yeah, with phyrexian arena on the bubble for a lot of cubes, no way this makes it. Pass.

If it were 2R, it would be a lot closer. But I don't see this making many final 40s over cubeable 4cc cards.

Yeah, no one's even drafting the Coercive Portal in my cube, I can't see this getting drafted much more.

If the "Dragons" ability were the Purphoros ability (Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, CARDNAME deals 2 damage to each opponent.), I would give it a try, simply to make the tokens-to-the-face deck more consistent. Only dealing 1 damage and being a ltb trigger makes it too weak though.

The "Khans" ability is also not that exciting, considering the cost of four. Yes, flexibility is nice, but both modes as printed are too underwhelming.

A cool modal card that is a bit too pricey. I'd like to see Red's bad card draw sub-theme pushed a bit, but we haven't got that here.

Quote from asmallcat »

Yeah, with phyrexian arena on the bubble for a lot of cubes, no way this makes it. Pass.

This is a thing? Phyrexian Arena continues to be stellar for us.

--------------------------

This seems pretty underwhelming. Four mana across the board seems to be the tightest spot for all colors, and there are 4 mana cards I'm not playing better than this.

Phyrexian Arena is really slow, taking three turns to get to a 1BB Divination with added two life loss. As our black decks are so fast, it was an okay recent cut for us at 360 as just a 'fair' card. Jace Beleren is in a better colour for the grindy effect, and importantly gives you an immediate return. This pales in comparison to Arena and Jace at four mana but would be super tempting at 2R or 1RR, particularly with the interesting alternate mode.

Meh, I think I like it better than Chandra, Pyromaster. It's a steady source of card advantage for red (that can't be attacked), it can be splashed, and it has a usable secondary function -- albeit one that's not as universally useful as Chandra's +1. Overall, I think it goes in more deck types than Pyromaster does because of its single-color cost, and TBH people shouldn't need much of an excuse for cutting planeswalkers these days anyways as cube is inundated with them.

I think Chandra is WAY better than this card, and she was cut a while ago.

Phyrexian Arena on the other hand is still great. Drawing cards is much better than this effect.

I still run Chandra, Pyromaster in my 720 unpowered list and she's a house. This is only marginally worse than her choosing Khans so I almost feel like I could use this as a second Chandra, that overall is a little harder to deal with. The real question is how much, if at all, the other option is actually gong to matter. I feel like white or black aggro could splash for this and use it to trade their small drops with larger creatures or force the final points of damage through a wall of fatties.

Not impactful enough.

I glossed over this card at first but it might be a sleeper.

I might be underestimating the option of playing one or the other. Both are good in different situations.
Also the 1 damage to target player OR creature could be really relevant.

I'm leaning towards it not being good enough, but this card is my pick for sleeper of the set if there is one

So has anyone's opinion on this card changed for the better over time? I agree its kind of slow but I've had a lot of success with the card in limited and T2 which is making me seriously reconsider. Always looking for more good Red cards that aren't just Red Aggro staples.

The card is really good in standard, but that's never been a great indication about how well a card would do in cube. I'd definitely run Coercive Portal before this card as it's better in most ways (it doesn't have a second mode, though)

I am actually wondering if I should give this card a try. Mostly because of the second ability though. Token combo decks could use another Purphoros, God of the Forge effect. Sure, it is weaker than the god's effect, but you can drop the Siege after having a bunch of tokens (or normal creatures) already in play. Unless your opponent can exile or bounce your creatures, that will guarantee a lot of damage, either through unblocked attackers or through attackers dying to blocks.

The first ability will come in handy in decks without the token synergies or simply when you ran out of gas.

By design, my cube is pretty weak for a 450, perhaps at an average powerlevel more typical of 630-810.

That said, Outpost Seige has been a house for us. Being unattackable and not costing life is sweet, and the single red is very relevant when you're trying to accelerate it our with elves in a GXr deck. I've killed enough people with "Dragons, full scale you" that I wouldn't look to replace it with the Portal.

I think this is one of the cards that really needs the flexibility of being able to switch between modes. Being stuck on the one you choose really limits its value for cube.

Just Venser +2 it

Sliver Lord has it all figured out guys. Broke. o.0

If anything, the success of this card in constructed has reinforced how good Coercive Portal is as a card. Dragons is too situational for me to ever be truly happy with it.

And that card wasn't even that good for us. Makes me really skeptical of this Siege for cube play.

Coercive Portal is a fine card. Being colourless and an artifact is a big advantage since it can go into any deck (and interact with stuff that cares about artifacts), and even then it's on the outside looking into our cube. I don't think the 'upside' of Outpost Siege is worth it, since the alternate mode is quite hard to profit from in cube since it's balanced for the potential of cycling large volumes of tokens, something easily achievable in EDH (Prossh?) but not red's forte in the cube. I think along with the other Sieges, it's not quite good enough for smaller cubes.

The second mode on this card is actually very good, especially in any kind of sacrifice/token deck. It single-handedly won me a game I had no business winning, and did so out of nowhere. It also plays super nicely with dash or other self-bounce mechanics.

The fact that it also has a painless pseudo phyrexian arena mode is actually complimentary since it's the sort of effect you want if you have minimal board position and need to rebuild one or just get gas for the final few points of burn.

Actually picked one of these up to try it out; I think it's better than it seems. Will report once I get some data on it.

I've liked Pyromaster enough, and I also like the new direction for red card draw being 'Elkin Bottle' effects.

-AA