MTG Salvation

Lazav, the Multifarious UB
Legendary Creature — Shapeshifter
When Lazav, the Multifarious enters the battlefield, surveil 1.
X: Lazav, the Multifarious becomes a copy of target creature card in your graveyard with converted mana cost X, except its name is Lazav, the Multifarious, it's legendary in addition to its other types, and it has this ability.
1/3

This thing scales up really nicely and can stop some aggro in the early game. It's sometimes mana-intensive, but has lots of synergy with many playable black 3's like Isareth the Awakener and Geralf's Messenger. Probably only for larger cubes, but it's able to stay relevant and flexible throughout the game for an upfront cost of 2 mana. Opponents will have to play carefully around it.

SOLD.

Very cool card. However...

• Doesn't offer more value than Baleful Strix or Hostage Taker without additional mana and cards.
• Doesn't present a bigger threat than Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, The Scarab God, or Psychatog without additional mana and cards.
• Can't compare to top-tier mana rocks like Dimir Signet or Talisman of Dominance.

So it's not for most traditional cubes IMO, even large ones. Should be super interesting for commander cubes / EDH in general tho.

So this never gets come into the battlefield effects? Pass

I've found this type of clone to be weak in the past. Most cube creatures are good because they have etb effects so Lazav is basically just copying power and toughness. Card is okay but the guild is way too tight for this.

Needing to pay X kills it. Don't even get ETB effects either. Easy pass for me.

Um, its base is basically an Omenspeaker that can sometimes load your GY with a reanimation target. It can block in the early game (although its three toughness might make it a little less valuable on this score than something like Thing in the Ice). Later on it represents a reanimation spell that doesn't remove the card from the graveyard (so you can still reanimate whatever it is again if you want). It can do so at instant speed, so you can find a turn where you didn't have to spend your mana and run this on the opponent's end step. Yeah, you miss out on ETB effects and that's unfortunate, but that's hopefully not all your cube is.

All told, this card is interesting, fun, and flexible... all things I want when looking at a cube addition. I'm gonna put this in over Shadowmage Infiltrator for starters. I'd probably also play this over Ashiok, but that's more out of a dislike for Ashiok than a raw power comparison. For smaller cubes, Dimir is pretty tight, and it's hard to imagine cutting Baleful Strix or Tezzeret AoB or Hostage Taker or Scarab God... maaaaaybe you could make a case vs. Dragonlord Silumgar, but I think Silumgar wins that battle too.

Interesting, and certainly great in some shells... Surveil 1 1/3 is solid in the early game, and the card scales very well into the late game.

My concern is that there will be too many UB decks I'm unhappy to play him in. Really want at least 6-10 creatures and ways to get them into your graveyard before he actively becomes anything better than a 22-23 playable. AND a few of those creatures must be good targets. IE consecrated sphinx, grave titan, true-name nemesis, glen elendra archmage.. Instead of like Torrential gear hulk, mulldrifter, venser etc.

In general, I like multi-colored cards a lot, and my cube has a higher density of them than most of equivalent size (including great fixing), but to compensate for that, I err on including multi-colored cards that are good in the significant majority of archetypes for that color combination.

I like thought erasure more from this set (albeit it's much less interesting).

Testing this guy if you have flex slot? Sure.

Running him over Ashiok? HERESY

Only seems remotely playable in cubes janky enough to make Phyrexian Dreadnought archetypes a thing.

This is an insanely cool card but I just don't see it being all that sweet in the traditional cube environment.

That said, I'm totes building an EDH deck for this guy. As soon as Lazav was spoiled I went out and picked up my LGS's last copy of Phyrexian Dreadnought on impulse.

Solid card, but I think the current suite is far too deep for this now.