MTG Salvation

Someone accidentally leaked their spoiler early.

Den of the Bugbear

Land (R)

If you control two or more other lands, Den of the Bugbear enters the battlefield tapped.

T: Add R.

3R: Until end of turn, Den of the Bugbear becomes a 3/2 red Goblin creature with "Whenever this creature attacks, create a 1/1 red Goblin creature that's tapped and attacking." It's still a land.

A fastland/manland/Hanweir Garrison combo seems pretty good to me. I hope there's a full cycle of these.

This card is gas. I also hope for a full cycle though I would likely only be interested in WBRG.

Note that fastlands come in untapped on 1,2,3 and this only comes in untapped on 1 and 2, despite their clauses looking pretty similar at a quick glance.

Also this will very rarely come up in the red aggro decks which most like this, but similar to raging Racine you can sink multiple activations into it to get multiple goblins on attack. Could be useful if you’re good at making infinite mana but low on ways to win from there, or something?

Seems ok. The body is a little bad and it has a window of two turns to come down untapped. Very good at attacking into empty boards and not very good at swinging into creatures, so it is punishing the right things. Functional cost to activate is 5 mana, so you have to compare that to eternal mainstays like Mishra's Factory and even modest manlands like Ghitu Encampment.

This seems like the best mono red utility land to me (apart from Shatterskull Smashing which is a bit different than a utility land). This vs Ramunap Ruins? I think this land has a much higher ceiling and can win the game on its own. Reminds me a bit of a mono-colored Raging Ravine that has a very relevant comes into play untapped clause.

Oh wow never knew about that trick on ravine! So it essentially gives the creature two distinct copies of that ability?

5 mana is a lot for something that trades with a 2/2, but this does a lot and of course 5 is exactly what you want post-wrath. I think this needs to be tested for sure.

Quote from asmallcat »

5 mana is a lot for something that trades with a 2/2, but this does a lot and of course 5 is exactly what you want post-wrath. I think this needs to be tested for sure.

If your untapped land trades with a 2/2 and leaves a 1/1 lying around that’s pretty great in my book.


In slower decks the tapped clause will be a lot more relevant. Much like barbarian ring’s pings, the choice of drawback really pushes it towards burn or streamlined 2C aggro specifically. I personally like mono color aggro decks a lot and am happy to gear mono color lands more toward them, but if you’re looking to push people toward slower more color styles of play this probably isn’t the land you want.

The problem I have with this is that I would need to find a cut, and I'm not sure I can. It doesn't do more for me than other cards. It can easily slot into a deck, but so can any manland, and I don't run all of them. Like do I cut Flametongue kavu or Hellrider? This isn't better than those.

I dig it. Great card. The untapped turn 1 or 2 is suchh a big difference from ETB tapped , especially for the colour red.
It’s at least in the running for best red utility land.
Guess it’ll play out similar to a slightly better raging ravine.

Is it impact high enough to be worth a cube slot? Modern cube, yup. Vintage? Ehhh not sure.
man lands are at their best when a format is Grindy, not explosive.

Quote from Szko »

The problem I have with this is that I would need to find a cut, and I'm not sure I can. It doesn't do more for me than other cards. It can easily slot into a deck, but so can any manland, and I don't run all of them. Like do I cut Flametongue kavu or Hellrider? This isn't better than those.

It's probably better than Avalanche Rider or one of your 5 drops, for instance.

going to run this over castle embereth in my red utility land slot. Card looks awesome!

I love manlands, so this is an easy test. Most red decks are probably not super excited to pack in possible taplands, and 4 other mana sources is kind of a lot, but making tokens is generally way better than it looks and a 3/2 and a 1/1 is a lot of stats even off just one activation, that's a whole Goblin Rabblemaster strapped to a land. Can't wait to try this.

Its not a bad card at all - Just not sure who the cut.

Now that it's clear this is a cycle, I hope at least one of them is good enough to run cause I love the alt art versions of these (right now this seems like the clear frontrunner to me).

I think this is the best of the cycle, but I'm still not super excited about it. I'd play this one at 450+

I love manlands, but I struggle with this one in particular due to the 3R activation cost. That effectively mean this is a turn 5 or later usage. Does this provide enough reach for using that much mana? I'm leaning towards no... In comparison, Mutavault / Mishra's factory cost 1, which is so much less than 5.