MTG Salvation

This card isn't bad. Being able to be a Draining Whelk of sorts on 1 half of the card and a Cancel in the other provides some flexibility to the value you can get from it. With the exception of Forbid, this might be the best option for a playable 3cc hard counter. Cube-worthy countermagic gets harder and harder to find as the cube gets bigger, and I could see large cubes getting some mileage out of this spell. Worth considering over cards like Dissipate and the like if you're still playing those.

Agree with the best 3 mana counter next to forbid.

Think this an auto include in mid-large cubes, will test and unsure about include in my 450.

Counter spells are Awsome in cube.
lots of glass cannon decks who get wrecked by a counter spell on their reanimaton spell, channel, hard casted titan etc.

This spell allows the blue deck to generate card advantage while controlling the board, exactly what it wants.... 6 mana is a very reasonable alternate cast for a deck that wants 17-18 lands.

I ran dissolve for a while and it didn't feel out of place. On first appraisal, think this is a decent clip better.

I like it, ill probably be expanding my cube soon, so I welcome another playable counterspell.

I'm not sure whether I prefer the upside of this card or the reliability of Dissolve. 6 mana is very attainable and this provides a decent clock, so I'll be testing it. It's leagues behind Forbid, though.

I like it. Not sure if I got room for it though, but it'll be the very next counterspell I'm adding to cube if I decide to add more.

I'm interested in testing it. I think it's flexible, despite being slightly overcosted by cube standards in both modes. Similar to evoke creatures, kicker and the other good awaken spell from this set.

I think it's the best awaken card alongside Ruinous Path. This card look really interesting.

I think this is a better card than ruinous path, and a very solid card in general. The fact that both modes are fairly costed is huge, although neither is cube levels of efficiency.

I think both modes of this card are somewhere between not bad and not great. Cancel has never been good enough. Draining Whelk is potentially miles better than the Awaken mode here. Is having something resembling both of those options on the same card worth a slot? I don't know. On first glance, I don't think so. At least, I don't think so for my mid sized cube. Maybe larger 600+ cubes could find room for this.

Obviously miles away from Forbid, but Forbid is broken. I really like this card, since getting a threat onboard alongside the tempo disadvantage of disruption of countering something is ideal for counterburn or control decks. Having Cancel as one of the modes makes it get online much earlier. It will be hard to find room for it but it's a sweet counterspell.

there are definitely times where this will be better than Forbid, the ceiling is generally higher for Forbid but getting a creature out of this spell can be a lot more useful than continual counters. And sometimes you can't really continually counter and this is better there.

3cmc counters aren't great but if we didn't have a bunch of better options we'd be running Cancel and Disolve I want another counter in blue and this is it, I will definitely be able to find room for this at 540.

Certainly reasonable. At 450 I don't need ant more counters. At 540 I am not sure if I would go for more conditional counters at 2 mana or something like this or dissolve. I also like exclude more. It might only hit creatures but being only one blue and always getting the value off it is great. With cube being such a creature format I recommend people test that as well if they are looking for more counter options as not many get printed anymore.

I added Dissolve a couple of months ago. Guess it will be already cut. The late game option for a big Mystic Snake should be worth losing scry 1. Counter + creature is a really good tempo play. Adding another creature of decent size to a creature-light control deck without having to reduce the amount of counters/removals is also nice.

This is awesome! I am currently running Exclude, Complicate and Dismiss trying to maintain a certain percentage of counterspells in blue.
This card is probably better than all of them. I really needed a new good counterspell. Dismiss might be the cut.

I cut Dismiss for Whirler Rogue so maybe I'll cut Pestermite for this card. It would be good to get another hard counter in the cube and with a 900 card cube, Pestermite doesn't come out that often to interact with Kiki-Jiki and by itself it's not great.

I just question how good a 3/3 is from a 6 mana card. Yes it is 'Free' I guess but do you want to hold up 6? for a beast? I just have so few games that drag out, optional expensive modes don't excite me. They are nice when they are free but I don't feel like it is free here.

3/3 is still a threatening creature size in cube. Otherwise, more people would play beast within.

It's 1UU for cancel, which is fair price (nowadays) and 3 more mana for a 3/3, right on curve. The best thing is that if you need counterspell earlier you can use it as cancel. Otherwise, you can use it to gain extra creature.

That said, I still think Ruinous Path is a better cube card (for black). 3 cc is cubable cost for Hero's Downfall but 3 cc is not cubable cost for counterspell. If I had a bigger cube I'll try to play both.

For what it's worth, I think all the Awaken spells are fantastic, from Ruinous Path to Planar Outburst to this bad boy. They're winning me over in initial testing; this one is great as a Mystic Snake that doesn't have to be clunky if you don't need it to be.

I'm having a hard time seeing what's good about this card. 1UU for a counter is kinda bad and is a 3/3 really worth holding 6 open for? I'm really interested to see how often it's cast for 1UU and how often it's cast with the 3/3 (and how relevant it is). In my head getting to scry 1 100% of the time sounds better--I'll be watching for results (skeptical though not gonna lie).

I think Forbid is obviously the best 3 mana counterspell, but this card is not bad. Probably won't make my cube :/

The only 3 mana counterspell that is clearly better than this is Forbid. Dissolve comes close, but is still most likely worse. I can't stress enough how good counter + creature in a single card is. Very good tempo play and very good for increasing the number of threats in your control deck without reducing the number of answers. There is a reason why almost everyone is still running Mystic Snake. A 3/3 is also a relevant body, unlike a 2/2 or smaller. A 3/3 is a serious threat. Plus, flexibility. Nobody would run Cancel. Nobody would run the pure Awaken version of this card. Having both of those effects in a single card makes this good. The problem with previous counter threats like Draining Whelk and Desertion was that you couldn't use them in the early game. They were dead cards until you had a significant amount of mana to leave open. Scatter to the Winds can be used in the early game. At the same time, it still has some serious late game power. And you don't even have to keep 6 mana open. Just play something else and leave 3 open for an emergency counter. If you can afford to leave 6 open though... your opponent will be in big trouble.

Dissipate, Hinder and Dissolve are all Cancel-variants with a small bonus. Scatter is a Cancel-variant with a substential bonus (it's a counter... and a threat!). I really can't see how anyone would think that this card is weak, much less think that those other Cancel-variants are better. How often does exiling the countered spell matter? Rarely. How often does a surprise 3/3 matter? Every. Single. Time.

Ok, small cubes don't have enought room to run multiple 3 mana counters, so they will just run Forbid and be done with this topic. As soon as you would want to run a second one of these counterspells, this is most likely the best option.

This is very close to a blue Burst Lightning. Shock is unplayable. Cancel is unplayable. There are strictly better Shocks that we don't even cube with. There are strictly better Cancels that we don't even cube with. A 4R Lightning Blast is horrendous, and wouldn't remotely be worth considering. A Mystic Genesis fixed on 3 for 4UU isn't worth it either. But Burst Lightning is great, because of the flexibility you get from having both options. I think this'll ultimately provide similar value in its flexibility.