MTG Salvation

This card could work as sweet cheat card. Kinda similar to Tooth and Nail. Well, similar to one of its modes and without the entwine option, but it does make up for that by costing 1 less. Plus, you can use it to put any permanent(s) from your hand onto the battlefield, not just creatures.

I didn't think that we would get a cubable Council's Dilemma card, because the other ones seemed mostly to be costed in a way that assumed 3-4 players. Which made those cards too weak for typical 2 player cube play. This one however seems perfectly fine with only 2 players.

YOLO Chaos Warp? That is a weird analogy. I would compare it to a one-shot Oath of Druids/Gamekeeper.

I think the most common scenario will be 1 wild + 1 free. If you have something big in your hand, you vote free, to make sure that you get it onto the battlefield. Then your opponent will most likely vote wild, because if you have a second big thing in hand, they'll be really screwed and a random library reveal has a chance of giving you one of your smaller creatures.

With that scenario, you want a 6+ cost permanent in your hand. You get that one into play with the free vote, then get a random creature for free with the wild vote, thus coming out card neutral. Of course, the more the permanent in your hand costs, the better the overall effect becomes. Optimally, you play this in super ramp / sneak deck with Eldrazi titans or something of that caliber.

It's an interesting effect. It will only really play perfectly in the decks that can break Oath of Druids, since ramp decks with a bunch of mana dorks aren't going to get much value from the "Wild" votes, and the "Free" can be situational. But it is a redundant effect for Oath/Show decks, so it's very likely worth consideration if you support that archetype.

This is fantastic for my Cube. I think it will play out in the opposite manner of what Star Slayer said - if you build your deck correctly for this card plus Oath and some of the other cheaty spells then I think it's the right call for you to call wild and put your opponent into the awkward situation of calling free and crossing their fingers that you don't have a fatty in hand. This card is build-around with a few other Cube cards (like Oath), and you need to leave dorks out of your deck.

I guess if you warp your whole deck around it, then the card will play differently than in a more typical deck.

However, if your deck truly is build like an Oath deck and has no small creatures, then your opponent might just as well vote free after your wild vote, hoping that you won't have a permanent in hand that is better than the average creature in your deck. And in that case, we are at the 1 wild + 1 free vote again.

I really see no need to build an Oath deck around this card though. Should work fine as another Tooth and Nail in a normal ramp deck.

But unless you build around it, it's nowhere near as good as Tooth and Nail in a normal ramp deck. I think that's the point we're trying to make.

Yes, the card is best in a deck without any small (or even medium-sized) creatures, but drafting such a deck is just way harder than drafting a normal ramp deck. Also, if you don't draw Selvala's Stampede (or Oath of Druids), you warped your deck for nothing. On the other hand, if you just put Stampede into a slightly adjusted ramp deck, its BCS will be weaker, but your whole deck is easier to draft and works better if you don't draw this one card.

Instead of seeing Stampede as an Oath of Druids variant and trying to maximize the wild vote at all cost, it seems far more reasonable to see this as a Tooth and Nail variant and to rely on the free vote as the main source of value.

UG Oath decks are playable and often very good in my Cube which is why I'm excited about this. I understand what you're saying, but I would not add this to my Cube if I didn't think there would be decks that wanted to consistently abuse the "wild" part of the card.

Well, Oath of Druids is great, so I don't agree that there's no payoff building around this. If anything, the presence of both of these cards makes the deck easier to build around and more consistent.

And this card is a far better redundant effect in an Oath shell than it is in a T&N shell. Tooth and Nail does a very specific combination of things that make it great, and this is only half as good at half of its modes.

Basically, if you can't reliably use the "Wild" effect on the card, I don't think it's good enough. But in the decks where you're willing to vote Wild, this card is probably really good.

It's times like this that make me wonder if my cube and the people I cube with really differ that much from other cubes and other cube groups.

From testing Oath of Druids in my cube and from my experience with drafting my cube in general and drafting ramp decks in particular, I'd say that relying on the wild vote seems insane and that the free vote is clearly the meat of the card. I'd say that a deck that fully abuses the wild vote will never be successful (in my cube) and that the card is well worth it primary for the free vote, with the wild vote as a random bonus.

e: I'm not saying it's unplayable in ramp, only that if you don't also have an Oath shell this can naturally drop into, I don't think it'll be good enough with just its other mode.

I do though, so I'll probably give this a trial run. Looks decent in a Sneak/Show deck, and great in an Oath deck.

It's nice that the opinions on how to play this card are so different. Looks like a very skill-intensive card, where you need to know your deck and your opponent to get the most value out of it. And for your opponent it's a difficult choice as well. They can vote free, hoping that you don't have (another) permanent on hand, or vote wild, hoping for a weak reveal. Either is very risky, a true dilemma.

For its floor, you can compare it to a green Through the Breach kind of effect. It loses the haste/instant speed and costs one more mana, but you can put any permanent into play with it (instead of just creatures) and the card sticks around permanently. That's the expected value from one "Free" choice. Plus, you'll get at least one other vote strapped to it that will likely give you at least some value, even if it's small.

Whereas the ceiling is through the roof. If it goes into a deck that's engineered around it and Oath of Druids, the "Wild" (Oath) trigger will net you a monster threat from your deck, and any previously drawn monsters will already be in your hand for the "Free" votes. You can vote Wild in a shell like that, and regardless of what your opponent chooses you're going to smash 2 6+cc threats to the board.

I think if you support both kinds of decks, this card has a lot of promise.

While I initially compared the card to Tooth and Nail, I think Show and Tell would actually be a better comparison.

It costs 3 more mana (big downside), but it is one-sided (big upside against most non-aggro decks). It also works with planeswalkers and gives you additional value (rarely a second permanent from your hand, more often a random creature from your deck).

All in all, I think those three upsides make up for costing 3 more mana. It certainly makes the card more balanced for an unpowered environment, since it doesn't allow for the super early blow outs that Show and Tell can create.

This card is VERY interesting. I've been running Oath of Druids for about a year now but the deck never seems to come together. I'm definitely going to test this out to give cheaty decks another tool and hopefully push that deck forward a little more. If Oath of Druids doesn't work out for me I'll probably cut it but I can see this card sticking around anyway. I really hope I get to see someone flip an Eldrazi Titan and drop Ugin or Karn from their hand. Lol.

Well you can't cast things that cost more than 6 when you're at 6 mana. And if you're running Oath of Druids--a debatably sweet card, one I can see both sides of--this is another enabler for when you can't force the Oath to trigger.

Quote from Pentabauer »

In my cube once you reach 6 mana you can cast most of your spells anyway.

That explains why this card doesn't excite you. Some cubes run many 7+ drops: Eldrazi titans, Ugin, Bolas, Karn, Griselbrand, Hornet Queen, Terastodon, Sundering Titan, ...

If you can get two of those cards to the battlefield, it's great value. Or if you get one and another random creature from your deck, it's still okay.

But we don't run Oath of Druids, and I'm surprise to hear that several of you run it. How do you make an Oath of Druids deck consistent in cube? Tutors? Academy Rector maybe? Anything else?

When I included Eldrazi titans, I also included Sneak Attack, Through the Breach and Tooth and Nail. I run five titans now, plus a bunch of other 7+ cost stuff (including two planeswalkers). Selvala's Stampede is just another card that lets you use those cards without the need to set up a huge mana production first.

Lack of consistency was the main reason why Oath of Druids decks failed in my cube. Drafted decks were a far cry from a constructed Oath deck where you could run 4 Oaths and 4 Brainstorms to make early Oaths a dependable occurence.

Quote from voiddisciple »

Quote from Pentabauer »

In my cube once you reach 6 mana you can cast most of your spells anyway.

But we don't run Oath of Druids, and I'm surprise to hear that several of you run it. How do you make an Oath of Druids deck consistent in cube? Tutors? Academy Rector maybe? Anything else?

I haven't always run it, but the thing is that there are more creature decks than people give cube credit for. If you build your deck right, it's much easier to activate oath or get put into a positive stalemate position than you'd think. It helps to support sneak/show too since those decks often overlap in overall function.

The influx of additional planeswalkers has made Oath a lot better over the years. You can run a creature-light deck that still has a lot of threats and stuff to do with your mana. It's a very specific support card for Sneak/Show/Eureka/Tooth shells that has the highest ceiling of almost any of them when it goes into the right deck.

Quote from Pentabauer »

Ok guys, I don't really get it. In my cube once you reach 6 mana you can cast most of your spells anyway. Well, I don't support Sneak & Show but still it seems very narrow.

Sounds like you do get it ...you just don't run the kinds of decks that would want the card.

Most cubes have some large threats floating around, including big green monsters, big planeswalkers, big robots and Eldrazi titans. The goal with those kinds of cards is to find engines that can get them into play early; whether it's Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, Through the Breach, Tinker, Natural Order, Oath of Druids, Eureka, Tooth and Nail or other effects like them. In decks running an Oath engine (noncreature ramp, planeswalkers and monster-fatties) the "Wild" votes will be bonkers. In decks that are playing effects like Sneak/Show/Breach/Eureka/etc the "Free" vote will be a redundant effect for those kinds of decks. The idea is to put this card into those kinds of decks as a redundant enabler, with the intent of guaranteeing you your 6 mana investment with just your vote, and breaking the effect by forcing the opponent to give you a vote that will result in another large threat. Shouldn't be hard to arrange that in the kinds of shells that already support those fatty-cheating spells to begin with.

Since you don't have any cards that cost more than 6 mana in your cube, it's not hard to figure out why this card doesn't interest you.

The more I read the card, the more I like it. The cube just keep getting larger and larger, so the cheat decks need additional support. Getting to play, let's say, Hornet Queen and Nicol Bolas with this is appealing. Definitely adding it to my inclusions list. I feel like I've missed this one by miles...

It's never an archetype that came up in my older cube, but I have to ask: how often do you end up with decks that can really break Oath of Druids? It always seemed like a card that asked you to compromise too much of your deck around it without enough redundancy. I get that this helps, but most of the time that I'm casting a 4GG sorcery, instinct makes me want dorks in that deck.