MTG Salvation

Didn't see a thread up for this card yet, and it looks QUITE good. I'm well aware that UUU is a gross mana cost and it doesn't do as much as Cryptic Command; that being said, it does do a lot. Stealing tokens in cube at instant speed is no joke!


If you can support the mana requirement, this card is never dead and you're always happy to have it. I'm going to give it a spin.

Dr Ruler on Twitter made the point that this pushes control drafters to stay very heavy blue rather than playing 4c pile. I've got plenty of 2cmc counters and I could see this replacing one. The mana cost sucks but it's certainly powerful.

I'm probably passing, but I'll keep Dr Ruler's theory in mind.

I feel like both Cryptic and Shackles fill that slot, and I'm not certain I want another card that does that. This card is good if you can cast it, but it's not like it's bonkers or anything. Would have cubed at 1UU, but as is I'd rather have Supreme Will.

This is the kind of card you have to design your cube with. You can't just throw in a ball lightning in cube and expect it to see play. I feel like in most cube decks this will just sit in your sideboard since no single mode is enough to get me to want to play mono/nearly-mono blue. Especially since blue is normally the color that most people want to be in.

I do play Ball Lightning, and it sees some play, but I don't like this. UUU Counterspell isn't good. UUU Divination isn't good. UUU steal a little thing is usually nothing, but occasionally very good. That's not a promising start for a charm.

I see Ball Lightning as worth dedicating for. Geralf's Messenger too. This card doesn't say to me "it's worth it to draft heavy blue". Counterspell does a much better job of that.

Quote from ryansaxe »

I feel like both Cryptic and Shackles fill that slot, and I'm not certain I want another card that does that. This card is good if you can cast it, but it's not like it's bonkers or anything. Would have cubed at 1UU, but as is I'd rather have Supreme Will.

This. We already have two strong cards that incentivize going into heavy blue, and both of them are stronger than this card. I’ll likely pass on this one.

This is the card that's closest to inclusion but gets wrecked by the cost. If this was 1UU it would be insane, and an immediate inclusion.

So happy I run double fetch in my 360. I'm confident this will be solid for my cube.

Nah. It’s a great card in mono U (13+ blue sources) but that’s about it.
Don’t feel like those decks need more support or that this card is interesting enough to have a narrow card like that.

I think some of you are underestimating the third mode. This isn't just "take a small thing," it can steal any token at instant speed. This is a potential tremendous blowout on something like an eternalized/embalmed creature, any Fractured Identity token, token decks not expecting a combat trick, etc. If you don't find yourself in a scenario where that is useful, the other two modes are the most quintessential options blue has - countering any kind of spell or just drawing 2 EOT.

Yes, none of those effects are worth UUU, but this is the standard fallacious argument used to disparage other charms. It's the utility/options you are paying for, not the individual effect.

I think we can all agree that at 1UU this would be an instant staple and truly amazing card. At 1UU I would easily put this card on par with regular Counterspell in terms of power level, maybe even better. It would smoke Supreme Will out of existence.

However, Cryptic Command is already awkward at 1UUU, and I think realistically UUU is almost as difficult to cast as 1UUU. Blue is the best color in cube and gets drafted heavily - you aren't going to make mono-blue work. So usually when you pass with this up, you will have 4 mana plus and just wish you had Cryptic Command instead.

For this reason, I think this card is highly inferior to cryptic command and a fringe card - I would put it around 540+ for inclusion, I don't think this gets close to 360 or 450.

This card is rampant / dominant in modern - has anyone tried it for cube?
If so, how has it worked out?

With Cryptic Command, you at least have a little room for a couple of colorless lands or a splash for a 2nd color and still have somewhat consistent on-curve castability. With this Charm, you pretty much need to be playing mono-blue and/or have 0 lands that tap for colorless in order to reliably play this at or around the time where its mana cost wants it to be played.

You'll want ~2 more blue sources in your manabase to play this on-curve in comparison to Cryptic Command, which is already insanely demanding in terms of source count.

This card is really powerful, but it's pretty much only playable in mono blue.

We just added this card as part of a cube-wide “mono” push. We have a new goal to support and sometimes incentivize mono-colored decks in every color depending on how the drafts plays out. For example, if blue is WIDE open we want the drafter to lean into mono rather than feel like they’re missing out too much on a second color even if the draft is telling them not to splash.

I’ll report back after testing!