MTG Salvation

At this point I might as well just completely redesign my cube around all these new cards entering the modern card pool.

Goblin Bombardment, Fire//Ice might be rares in this set but I think since you have all been using them I suspect they will be fine.

Where do you guys think the blue/red giant would rank in that color pair peasant has access to, would it break the top 5?

Herd Baloth might be justifiable with only heavy combo support. It and Scurry Oak go infinite with Ivy Lane Denizen, but they both also work with the +1/+1 on etb cards that enable the persist combo. Renata, Called to the Hunt, Grumgully the Generous, Good-Fortune Unicorn, and Rhythm of the Wild are 4 entirely reasonable cards that turn Herd Baloth into 2 5/5s. It's a lot of specific cards, but even just in RG you can have 4 enablers, 2 Ivy Lane specific pieces, 2 persist creatures, then Goblin Bombardment + alternate sac outlet of choice, which is a lot of redundancy for infinite combos that is playing reasonable midrange cards.

Prophetic Titan being expensive and needing delirium makes it a bit hard to recommend over most UR cards that see play but it is an incredibly abusable card with a bit of work. Using the etb impulse to find reanimation/blink effects makes it into a single card engine in the right deck (It + Ephemerate is reasonably close to lethal by itself). Without blink/reanimation I think its powerlevel doesn't make up for how much more expensive and clunky it is than most played UR cards.

Crawl the Desert looks like it could be interesting. 5 mana for a number of 1/1 birds equal to the toughness of a creature card that you exile from your GY. At four tokens, it would already be a more conditional but a mono-colour Migratory Route (without landcycling). Anything beyond that is probably christmas wonderland but in Selesnya, you would easily have access to some big butts to go with it.

5cmc do nothing without setup. I feel like 3 tokens on curve is probably being generous as an average case.

At first I was thinking that Herd Baloth would be quite strong, but when I actually counted it out I only have about a dozen cards that can put counters on other creatures which seems a bit low. I'll need to look into adding more counter distributors if I decide to test the Baloth.

Tireless Provisioner is intriguing. Getting a treasure for landfall is perhaps even better than Lotus Cobra because you can spend the mana another turn. Getting Food on landfall is ok; I'm not a huge fan of food, but sometimes the lifegain is useful. But having the flexibility for either (mana when you need it, life when you don't) is pretty fantastic.

Yeah, provisioner looks great. Lock for me.

And we have Entomb on a stick with deathtouch. Really nice card.

Abhorrent Gravedigger
2BB
Creature - Zombie Warlock

Deathtouch
Whenever Abhorrent Gravedigger enters the battlefield, search your library for a card, and put it into your graveyard.
2/2

I want Entomb on a stick in exactly 1 deck. Besides dedicated reanimator who else wants it?

Also how good is a 3cmc lotus cobra? I wasn't that impressed when I saw it but I've never played cobra so happy to be wrong.

Quote from n00b1n8R »

I want Entomb on a stick in exactly 1 deck. Besides dedicated reanimator who else wants it?

Also how good is a 3cmc lotus cobra? I wasn't that impressed when I saw it but I've never played cobra so happy to be wrong.

While I agree on the entomb guy, I have to disagree on Provisioner. Lotus Cobra is good ramp; I've played it a fair amount. This may be three mana (so not as good), but it's also better than Cobra because you don't have to use the mana that turn - you can stockpile it between turns. And it turns a late Evolving Wilds into two mana that turn.

Turn 2 Rampant Growth/Sakura-Tribe Elder
Turn 3 Provisioner then land
Turn 4 land then Pelakka Wurm

I wouldn't even call that one magical Christmas land. It's really just two ramp spells.

Quote from n00b1n8R »

I want Entomb on a stick in exactly 1 deck. Besides dedicated reanimator who else wants it?

Decks with Worm Harvest or Roar of the Wurm?

Not saying the card is good enough because it is still very narrow but it might have a place in the B/G graveyard deck or in some deck with two or three good Flashback cards.

Ok with the GW outlaster I think it's time to take a fresh look at a GW +1/+1 archetype. This set has added more viable cards than the previous 3 years.

"Barbed Point"

1W
Artifact - Equipment
When Barbed Point enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 colorless Thopter creature token with flying and attach this to it.

Equipped creature has +1/+0.

Equip 2

Finally we get a white 2/1 flyer two drop with upside. It's a very small upside as the equipment can't possibly be any worse than this, but it's better than nothing and you get equipment (and possibly artifact if you run that) deck synergies.

Yeah, Barbed Point definitely had me going 'Finally!'. I also like how it works with both tokens and equipment matters which are key white-based archetypes.

Foundation Breaker seems really solid.

Foundation Breaker is definitely solid but there are a lot of choices nowadays for this effect: Reclamation Sage, Thrashing Brontodon, Wilt and Wickerbough Elder come to mind.

I don't run most of the "power" artifacts (skullclamp, Sol Ring, Warhammer etc.) so I don't need any more of these effects (I am not even running the elder) so I would have to cut one of those.

I personally think Foundation Breaker is worse then Sage. It's only better then Brontodon, Elder and Wilt if you can reliably have a target so this depends on your cube, I guess.

I am still running Conclave Naturalists as well, and the Breaker is going in for that. I agree on it being definitely worse than Reclamation Sage, but my cube does have some artifacts and enchantments that can take over the game if left unanswered.

On the Entomb-on-a-stick: I think it having deathtouch is good enough for it to see play in multiple decks. Mind that it can tutor any card to the yard, so getting a fatty to reanimate or some value spell like Roar of the Wurm or Deep Analysis seems good enough for me. I still run Stinkweed Imp, and this seems more or less like a more surgical tool compared to the shotgun blast that is dredge.

Barbed Point is finally an upgrade to some really old cards. Also free pants support.

Tireless Provisioner is a great dedicated ramp card with repeatable lifegain + storable mana, but not accelerating 4 drops and trading down on mana vs removal makes it way worse elsewhere.

With how multicolour friendly our duals are Glinting Creeper isn't that hard to get big. A 5 mana 8/8 isn't too unrealistic, though it is a bit boring.

Arcus Acolyte having lifelink and reach on a growing body as well as a build your own anthem seems pretty solid. That being said, I'm a bit hesitant since I was not impressed by outlast in the past. Obviously great if you support +1/+1 counters.

Captain Ripley Vance is a sick card. Getting 1 trigger isn't super easy, but obviously makes the card excellent. Also Reckless Charge + flashback + spell is lethal on an open board (if that spell is Temur Battle Rage it's lethal against <11 toughness boards).

Rakdos Headliner is an excellent BR aggro card.

Quote from ArBoR4817 »

Foundation Breaker is definitely solid but there are a lot of choices nowadays for this effect: Reclamation Sage, Thrashing Brontodon, Wilt and Wickerbough Elder come to mind.

I don't run most of the "power" artifacts (skullclamp, Sol Ring, Warhammer etc.) so I don't need any more of these effects (I am not even running the elder) so I would have to cut one of those.

I personally think Foundation Breaker is worse then Sage. It's only better then Brontodon, Elder and Wilt if you can reliably have a target so this depends on your cube, I guess.

Nobody runs Acidic Slime these days?

Quote from user-23643864 »

Nobody runs Acidic Slime these days?

I still do.

I run Caustic Caterpillar, Reclamation Sage, Thrashing Brontodon, Wickerbough Elder, and Acidic Slime. I do run power artifacts (Sol Ring, Skullclamp, Loxodon Warhammer), so it's important to run answers. And with my cube's emphasis on ETB and blink, Foundation Breaker is a shoe-in. I like the flexibility of evoke. It'll probably replace Wickerbough.

I am not seeing Barbed Points appeal. +1/0 is really bad and compared to my other 2 mana flyers, Fearless fledgling and Kor Skyfisher it is super meh.

Tireless Provisioner, seems good to me I'll replace Civic Wayfinder

I am still running Acidic Slime

Any thoughts on Batterbone?

Quote from user-23643864 »

Nobody runs Acidic Slime these days?

I didn't mention it in the list because it can also destroy land and as such always has a target but it's also in my cube.

Big fan of the Vile Gravedigger. It's the kind of card that enables high-synergy decks without being embarrassing in lower synergy builds. In some decks he is a flexible tutor for a reanimation target or an unburial rites, while in others he just finds a decent GY value spell like Reach of Branches.


Not a fan of Tireless Provisioner. About as niche as Evolution Sage but without the upside, IMO.


I'm bigger on Herd Baloth than others. I've been trying to support +1/+1 synergy for years, and it's easier to get counters on this guy than you might think. For instance Llanowar Reborn makes this guy a 5 mana 4/4 + 5/5 with upside. That's nothing to sneeze at.

And the same goes for me, I still run the slime but didn't mention it because between it having deathtouch and it killing lands it is a whole lot better than some of the other green dudes that don't like artifacts or enchantments very much. (Also I just plain forgot about it, lol :p) But yeah I agree with what was said earlier, Evoke just plays so well with some things in the cube, my players always have a lot of fun with the evoke cards we run.

So, for green my artifact/enchantment hate suite consists of:
Reclamation Sage
Thrashing Brontodon
Wickerbough Elder
Acidic Slime
Conclave Naturalists (which will get replaced by Foundation Breaker)

I really like Tireless Provisioner as well, but I'm very unsure what to cut. Civic Wayfinder is a bit boring, maybe, but it is a very very good card.

Batterbone was fine, up until me reading the equip cost no way am I paying 5 for that.