MTG Salvation

Ugh that land is so dope why is the front half so ******* awful uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh oh well

Nope, that's not a cube card. It's not horrible as a jank Future Sight, but missing lands, and doing nothing the turn it comes out properly doom this card.

I was hoping the red one would be a take on Bazaar of Baghdad.

It's kind of like a Keranos if you squint hard enough... but as far as 4 mana draw engines go, this has to compete with two Chandras, Outpost Siege, and Coercive Portal, and I don't think this is better than any of them.

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

Nope, that's not a cube card. It's not horrible as a jank Future Sight, but missing lands, and doing nothing the turn it comes out properly doom this card.

I was hoping the red one would be a take on Bazaar of Baghdad.

At least Future Sight was kinda playable once; this card would probably be even worse back when future sight was alright.

That's probably why the front side is so *****ty, the land is such a game changer.

They don't even feel like they go in the same kind of deck. The land is an agro decks wet dream in terms of inevitability/reach but the front half is a do nothing enchantment in the slot your finisher wants to be, and to top it all off you then need to cast 3 spells in a turn. The midrange or control decks that want the draw usually aren't looking to cast 3 spells in a turn.

That land is amazing but the front side is poo.

Cheers,
rant

Not interested at all, but it's not that far off.
I cubed with outpost siege for a while, and it was fine... not good enough to last, and not well suited for most cube environments but still solid.

Won't be surprised if it sees standard play, primarily for it's front side.

Casting 3 spells in a turn is very difficult without a deck designed to do just that... and the payoff isn't worth jumping through crazy hoops to get.

Quote from ravnic »

Is it really that bad? It shouldn't be that hard to go cheap spell, this, cheap spell, especially in powered cubes. And then you've got a busted land.

Yea it can be done, but is the downside of running an otherwise lackluster card worth it? I mean technically you could play land, Lotus this then a Mox and power it out turn one but that doesn't make me want to run it. Even in spells matter decks I'm usually not getting off 3 spells in a turn as I usually want to keep up counter mana or save stuff for my opponents EoT.

Interesting wording on the transform trigger. I wonder if that means Vengevine will be receiving an errata to read "Whenever you cast your second creature spell in a turn..."

Almost as much of a letdown as Noxious Gearhulk was, when we all thought it'd cost 3BB.

This card is far better than this thread seems to think. Outpost Siege is a solid card, and this is most of the reason why it's good. Plus the ability to randomly transform into a game-ending land some times. It might miss the cut for my 540, but if it does it'll be by a close margin.

This card feels like further proof the WOTC design team reads the cube thread for ideas on cards they'll let us have....if we jump through ridiculous hoops we didn't ask for first.

Not saying that kind of land should come easily, but they made the price of entry way too high on the entire cycle.

Quote from steve_man »

Quote from wtwlf123 »

This card is far better than this thread seems to think. Outpost Siege is a solid card, and this is most of the reason why it's good. Plus the ability to randomly transform into a game-ending land some times. It might miss the cut for my 540, but if it does it'll be by a close margin.

I will admit that the expectations combined with the fact that this is a red 4-drop may have lead a lot of people to underrate this since Outpost Siege is a cubeable card. However, there are two tests this card fails to me.

1.) Assuming I'm already playing Outpost Siege, would I replace it with this? Without testing, I'm leaning towards no since you can play lands off Outpost Siege and the second mode is pretty solid in token shells. Outpost Siege is a strictly better card pre-transformation, and I don't think this will transform all that often.

2.) If I'm not playing Outpost Siege, would I want to play this? Also no.

1) I think this is far closer to yes than you think. If you're playing Siege as a way for aggro decks to find reach/gas and close out games against midrange and control, I think this is better than Siege. If you're playing Siege as a Coercive Portal imitator for midrange/control decks, than Cannons probably won't replace it. But I think Cannons is quite a bit better in that first role than Siege is (for aggro decks) ...enough so that I'd be more willing to include it in a slot where I don't currently do so.

2) I don't currently play Siege, and I would play Cannons over it. So I'd answer yes here too.

The flip side of this land is completely bonkers. And the front side does a reasonable job imitating a fringe-playable cube card. I think it's way closer than people seem to think.

Agreed. I think it's definitely an aggro card, but I think it's pretty damn good for a deck who's curve ends at 4. Missing lands won't matter much there (since you can cast every non-land card you hit), it's have a higher chance of flipping, and even if you start to stall out the eventual flip will give you all the reach you need to win the game.

I was never really impressed by siege, it was kinda slow and never did a lot for us, a better back side if I hit three spells isn't that appealing when the front side has performed so bad for us.

You guys got me talked into at least trying it if it's cheap.

I actually still have Outpost Siege in my cube - included it in 450, IIRC, because I couldn't find a copy of some red staple in my collection and it was sold out in my LGS. I quite liked Siege, and it was practically always there for CA and used for damage mode possibly once. Gonna test this in its place in 540. I think one possibly janky red 4 is acceptable there.

Let us know how it goes! I think this card is better than it looks.

Quote from AntiPox »

If I make a dragonsiege in an aggressive deck, either something's gone horribly wrong, or my opponent is at like 2 life and horribly dead on board next turn.

If this card did hit lands I'd be all over it, I agree.

I see this a lot and I feel like it's hyperbole that some people see as fact. There's no way every aggro deck out there in other people's cubes always wins on turn 3 or 4. I'd say the games where aggros plan goes of without a hitch are like 25% of games.