MTG Salvation

Cultivator's Caravan
3
Artifact - Vehicle
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

Crew 3 (Tap any amount of creatures you control with total power 3 or more: This vehicle becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.)

5/5

Seems pretty good. About on par for fixing that accelerates. And it can beat down later.

Looks to be a 5/5.

Probably the best 3 mana rock that only taps for 1 mana.

Would snap include w/ Crew 2. But in testing, Crew 3 has been kinda rough in this format...

Quote from MagicFever »

Do you know its p/t?

It's 5/5.

Definitely worth a test, but crew 3 is a lot for a vanilla beater.

5/5 - I've attached an image of the French spoiler.

It's interesting, but it doesn't get there for me. Crew 3 is a steep requirement, and I'm not really interested in mana rocks that cost 3 but only ramp 1.

Looks like a good replacement for Chromatic Lantern. One mana of any color is usually enough fixing anyway, and even with the crew 3 requirement, 5/5 is a nice body for a mana rock.

Ive still got a few 3 mana rocks so this is going straight into the cube for me as a replacement for darksteel ingot.

I have also found crew three to be a bit hard to consistantly activate but i feel like flexibility of being a 3cmc 5/5, or mana fixing and ramp with late game game implications is pretty amazing.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

Looks to be a 5/5.

Probably the best 3 mana rock that only taps for 1 mana.

Would snap include w/ Crew 2. But in testing, Crew 3 has been kinda rough in this format...

That was my impression. I'd like it a lot more if it either cost one less or crewed for one less.

I'm skeptical. How often does a deck that wants a 3cmc rock have 3 or more power on board that they don't want to attack with? I usually see Coalition Relic or Chromatic Lantern in either Wildfire/Upheaval, Green Ramp, 3+c Control or Reanimator. I guess the ramp deck might have this as a backup plan, tap its dorks in order to have big attacker/blocker before getting any of the big wincons out, but to me that seems pretty fringe. The other decks usually have one or two creatures on board, and they'd rather attack with those.

In what archetypes do you see this card? (I'm trying to get better at card evaluation, and since more experienced people seem to like this there's probably a lot I'm missing.)

I might test it.
I have 68 creatures which can activate this on their own.

I think there isnsome good use for this. Example, hell ramp into a titan. Titan comes in, get etb effect. Tap titan, swing with this, next turn swing with titan.

I dont think every small cube needs this, but it warrents testing i think

I think you are right about upgrading Chromatic Lantern. I can imagine powering this up with Mutavault for added beats!

I don't think I would replace Chromatic Lantern for this. I'd rather have all my lands be rainbow than the off chance to maybe attack with a 5/5, especially at the cost of needing 3 creatures to begin with.

Quote from calibretto »

I don't think I would replace Chromatic Lantern for this. I'd rather have all my lands be rainbow than the off chance to maybe attack with a 5/5, especially at the cost of needing 3 creatures to begin with.

That isn't how Crew works. Keep seeing people make that mistake.

EDIT: I actually kinda like this card. I'm not running any 3 CMC mana rocks presently, but this one doubles as a small upgrade to a 3/3 creature in the late-game or lets you compile some tokens for a more favourable attack. Think it could be quite decent.

It is almost like a free equipment with no equip cost.

I'll replace Darksteel Ingot with this for sure. Since I don't run the Signets, but I do support artifact/Wildfire/Upheaval, it's important for me to have these kinds of rocks.

Quote from Goodking »

That isn't how Crew works. Keep seeing people make that mistake.

Ah, yes. You are correct. My mistake. Reading ftw.

This doesn't change my opinion when comparing the two cards, though. The decks we play that want Lantern would rather have the mass fixing than the random beater.

This card feels like it will have no home. Decks that would play Manalith-variants usually don't have the right creatures to animate it and decks that will have a couple of creature lying around usually don't want to play Manalith-variants.

If it had crew 2, it would have a much higher chance of getting crewed in ramp and control decks. There are a bunch of utility creatures that have 2 power. Very few have 3 power though. And the decks that I am thinking of will rarely have multiple small creatures in play.

For those reasons, I still like Chromatic Lantern more than this. At least that one has a bonus that is often relevant in 3+ color decks. I therefore disagree that Cultivator's Caravan is a clear upgrade.

Bottom line: Why the heck is a trade caravan like this a 5/5? Seems pretty belligerent for such a thing. Couldn't this be a 4/5 or even just a 3/5 with crew 2!?

One thing that's interesting about these vehicles is that they can be recurred/reanimated/tutored. This provides a new angle of value that hasn't been discussed much yet. My cube (and playgroup) lean more multicolor than most, so cutting Lantern might not be realistic...I could see cutting Dingot though

Vehicles can be recurred/reanimated/tutored exactly as much as any other artifact. I don't see any advantages here.

Quote from Star Slayer »

This card feels like it will have no home. Decks that would play Manalith-variants usually don't have the right creatures to animate it and decks that will have a couple of creature lying around usually don't want to play Manalith-variants.

I agree with this. It's not like Skysovereign, where the payoff for animating it is so high that you actually want to put an extra creature or two into a control deck...it's more like Cryptolith Fragment, where the payoff is hard to make worthwhile no matter what kind of deck you're running.

It's true that it doesn't really have a home for both its functions. I'm usually rather conservative with my manabase and I almost never play 4 or 5 colors, so that's why even incidentally turning this into a 5/5 seems better than Chromantic Lantern for me. But some other players here draft differently, and it may actually be better to keep the Lantern for them.

Cultivator's Caravan was discussed here in the Random Cube Card of the Day Thread. We don't have a bandwagon but this caravan should get you to the thread.

(Spoiler: Alot of comparisons to chromatic lantern regarding what is the better 3cmc slot, but in general people want 3 mana rocks to make more than 1 mana.)