MTG Salvation

Quote from JohnnyDegenerate »

I love the OG Tedin art the most. The 5th edition Wanerstrand art is the outlier for me, while I normally like his work his CoB just wasn't up to his usual.

The Wanerstrand art is actually my favourite! just wish there was a way to get it in black border. Tedins is also great though.

Eh, to each their own I suppose. And that definitely is a problem with a lot of the arts redone for the core sets. It would have been nice for black boarders then, but WotC was in a weird phase of life back then.

I slipped out my friend's city of brass for my city of ass in our monthly cube draft. He was not amused by my prank.

Quote from Visserdrix »

Quote from JohnnyDegenerate »

I love the OG Tedin art the most. The 5th edition Wanerstrand art is the outlier for me, while I normally like his work his CoB just wasn't up to his usual.

The Wanerstrand art is actually my favourite! just wish there was a way to get it in black border. Tedins is also great though.

I too am a fan of it, I have a gold bordered world championship version in my cube. Gold border > white border IMO.

I find all the arts after the first two (7th edition onwards) lost the feel of being a metal city in a desert with blazing hot sun beaming down on it constantly, it would be hellish but the newer arts make it seem like a nice place.

The original 5-color land that enters the battlefield untapped, City of Brass has earned its ranking as the #5 land in the latest Power Rankings, and if it weren't for the recent printing of the barely-better Mana Confluence it would hold the title as the best 5-color fixer for cube. It's at its best in more aggressive decks that don't mind having to take a point each turn from it, but it sees play in almost any deck that wants 3+ colors.

Jung Park's art on this one isn't really my favorite, but I'm running the MM1 foil because it's about the only way I was ever going to get a foil version into my cube.

At 450, I'm running 8 5-color fixing lands:

• Ash Barrens
  
• City of Brass
  
• Evolving Wilds
  
• Gemstone Mine
  
• Grand Coliseum
  
• Mana Confluence
  
• Terramorphic Expanse
  
• Undiscovered Paradise

I wouldn't mind getting 2 or 3 more 5-color lands in, but I don't really care for the 1-shot fixers like Tendo Ice Bridge and Aether Hub, and my playgroup didn't react well to City of Ass or Palliano, the High City for flavor reasons, so they had to go. I'm holding out hope for some good fixing in the next Commander set.

Shelldock Isle



BONUS QUESTION

What's your favorite utility land?

Shelldock Isle is sweet, but it can also be slow. There have been a number of matches where it's an ETB tapped island that exiles a card from your deck--that sucks. But then there are games where you cast Upheaval or EOT giant creature or whatever. It's a card I can understand not being in a cube, but I will usually try to grab it mid-to-late pack if I'm already firmly in blue.

Favorite utility land(s) are Strip Mine/Wasteland. Land destruction can be so devastating, especially with the number of manlands currently.

Does Khalni Garden count as a utility land? I like that it creates a free blocker, since our green chunk of the cube is slow. If not, then Geier Reach Sanitarium because the ability to disrupt your opponent's hand is amazing.

Shelldock is nice, especially if you're going to firmly play 40 cards, but the only hideaway card I really like is Windbrisk Heights.

Strip Mine is the best utility land ever made, but that goes without saying. Library of Alexandria is one of my top 3 favorite cards, if that counts as utility. Maze of Ith if not.

In EDH land, I really like Vault of the Archangel and Kessig Wolf Run.

Shelldock Isle is great and we rate it higher than most. Goes into any meaningfully blue deck, free spells are always nice.

I like Shelldock and if I didn't support the artifact deck, I'd play it. I used to play it and it was fun, though a little janky sometimes. Cube is the perfect format for it, but my cube doesn't have room at 450.

Favorite utility land ever is Glacial Chasm, which goes into most of my EDH decks. I love that some decks just can't beat it.

Shelldock is fine, but it's slow, matchup dependent, and it doesn't do anything in the matchups blue actually needs help with. It helped me win a surprisingly small number of games I wasn't going to win anyways.

Can Library be a utility land? If so, it's my favorite. If not, Strip Mine. If neither, than IDK.

I'd say any land that does something other than just tap for mana is a utility land, so I wouldn't argue with anyone's choices.

Shelldock Isle only does anything in a control deck that can afford to wait to go through half its library before doing anything, but being able to cast anything for effectively 2 mana, and always at instant speed can be great once you get there. Still, I just can't find room for this in my blue section right now as blue is so competitive. It's lands like Shelldock Isle that tempt me to run a separate utility land draft.

My favorite utility land is also Strip Mine, mana disruption for 0 mana is so strong.

Worst ramp spell ever!

Path to Exile



BONUS QUESTION

Which term do you prefer: "remove from the game" or "exile"?

As others have said, Shelldock Isle is a bit slow and can be swingy too. Sometimes you get something sweet under it. Other times, it's lackluster or unlikely to impact the game. There can be a fun surprise factor with the card though, a bit like running a ton of morphs in your cube. It comes in and out of my lists.

Utility land... hmmm... Depending on how you define that, I'd probably say Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse. Just a solid card in so many decks (bonus for landfall synergy, a mechanic I really love). I also very much like the onslaught cycle lands, cycling being such a great game mechanic for preventing non-games. Tacking that onto a land is such a strong combination. Power choice would probably be Volrath's Stronghold. Card is really abusable and also fun to build around, particularly in a slower midrange list.

Path to Exile is great at killing everything other than mana dorks. And killing anything for 1 mana is just good.

I used to prefer "removed from the game" ...when that's what it actually meant. Now that Exile is a zone that can be interacted with (a design decision I really dislike) it kinda has to remain "exile" now.

Path to Exile is premium high powered removal. It's the "fixed" Swords to Plowshares that is still clearly too powerful. Depending on what you are trying to do with your cube meta, it's potentially too mana efficient for what it does (IMO, this doesn't belong in lower powered rare lists or in Peasant lists).

I tend to prefer older terms, so I'm going to go with "Remove from Game". But I think there's a strong argument for "Exile" simply because many cards let you cast or play cards that are "Removed from the game", which doesn't make logical sense linguistically (I mean, how do you play something not part of the game, right??).

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I used to prefer "removed from the game" ...when that's what it actually meant. Now that Exile is a zone that can be interacted with (a design decision I really dislike) it kinda has to remain "exile" now.

I think this is a bit of a Princess Bride moment (that word never meant what we thought it meant). Just look at Mind's Desire... old card, old syntax, and still interacting with cards "not part of the game". I don't think it ever made sense TBH.

PtE is definitely one of the top, premiere removal cards in the game. Not quite as good as StP, but one of the best. Guay's art is fantastic, and Lockwood's is classically good. The other two, I don't really love, but Sarmento's at least makes sense. Yang's art looks like it was designed more for a Lightning Blast reprint. I don't usually like going removal extremely early, but I'll always consider splashing white if it and StP come around early.

I love "remove from game" much more than "exile." Sure, ultimately they mean the same thing, but with "remove from game" I always envision just grabbing the card, slinging it away yelling "GEDDA F*** OUTTA HERE" before returning to the game.

PtE is obv amazing. Rebecca Guay promo art FTW.

I prefer the term "exile." Saying something is "removed from the game" is fine, except that became untrue at some point. Also, I thought the "removed from the game zone" was a terrible name, when you had much simpler ones (like hand, graveyard, library, etc.). Changing to "exile" cleaned that up.

Path is an actually fixed card (the fixed card being swords to plowshares) that plays pretty fair. In some board states giving an opponent the land drop can do more harm than good. That being said instant exile removal at one mana is an auto include in any cube that can run it.

"Remove from the game" is such a straightforward phrase it is evocative of teaching the game to a new player. I can also see how exile as a game text declutters the actual ruling of what is done in a game and allows interesting refinements to the game.
I do share with wtwlf123 a certain amount of trepidation for WotC to abuse a second "graveyard" zone.

Sorry for the lack of a card yesterday, I was removed from the game by a nasty flu bug. I'm feeling better now, so here's today's card....

Ral Zarek



BONUS QUESTION

Who's your favorite one-shot planeswalker (i.e. planeswalker with only one card of that planeswalker type in print)?

Ral Zarek is pretty solid. I like that he is removal + reach with his second ability--6 damage to the face for 2UR can be enough sometimes. His first ability is pretty neat too, since it can be used for mana production, multiple activations of tap abilities, forcing through damage, and if you're running Time Vault it's a combo there. Plus he has the best ultimate of all time--0 to a million turns. I haven't seen anyone miss 100% yet, but I have seen someone only get 1 extra turn. (They still won.)

I would say the biggest issue with Ral Zarek is that he's Izzet, and there are a lot of good interesting Izzet cards and only so many Izzet spots. I don't think Ral Zarek is SO GOOD that he is cemented into every list, but sometimes it's hard to justify running certain cards if it were to mean excluding him, especially since any Izzet section is automatically -1 in terms of spots since Dack Fayden is actually ridiculous.

Side question: Does anyone here run Time Vault? It's interesting because it seems to be rarely in lists, even powered ones, but if you look at the Holiday Cube draft videos from the community when it was in the Holiday Cube ~2(?) years ago it was often regarded as the best card, or at least one that was almost never passed.

Tibalt is my man. Jacob Wilson and Alexander Haynes have done videos of RUG Delver Legacy Decks where they have a bunch of ridiculous cards in the SB including Tibalt and other cards like Commandeer and Treasure Trove. They're actually hilarious, which is rare for a magic video. (Especially the ones trying to be funny.)