MTG Salvation

People love to say that it finds four cards, but most of the combos I've seen involve essentially trying to turn 4 cards where you have no control over where they're going, into 2 cards that you can actually control where they go. i.e. gifts for mike + trike + 2 reanimation spells, just forces the mike trike pick and presumably the reanimation sitting in your grave is now useless. So you've saved 1 mana compared to the new tutor you think sucks, for a combo that costs 12 mana to hardcast anyway.

Obviously it's a powerful card with lots of flexibility compared to shared summons. But shared summons is like...a fine card. It's unlikely to see any competitive play. Is gifts better? Yeah, generally. Is it waaay better? I mean, sometimes, but the power level isn't THAT different. So if you think shared summons sucks, then you're certainly not helping the case for keeping it banned. Shared summons but more flexible and better is still well within the limits of what's OK in commander, imo.

Also, to be REALLY powerful, it does actually require a certain degree of build-around and pre-planning - basically to fully optimize it you need to be playing cEDH or close to - which is kinda not the point of the banlist.

Quote from Carthage »

Quote from Muspellsheimr »

Quote from Carthage »

The most usual search pattern for gifts ungiven is to search for two cards you actually want, and two cards that recur the two cards you actually want, because your opponent will never give you the cards you actually want. So gifts ends up being one mana cheaper, but you have to spend time getting back the cards you actually want, with effects like academy ruins and noxious revival.

Did you know Entomb is a good card? Gifts Ungiven finds four cards, unrestricted by card type. For four mana.

Sometimes you will find two necessary cards, and two ways of recurring them. In my experience, that is not the norm. Even when it does happen, it is still far more flexible, and almost always cheaper, than finding an equivalent with Shared Summons.
For example, Gifts for Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Triskelion, Reanimate, & Animate Dead is significantly cheaper than Summons for the creatures alone.
The closest comparable function of Summons to finding Pact of Negation, Force of Will, Snapcaster Mage, Mission Briefing costs an additional 3 CMC, and 3 colored mana, with a requirement of at least two colors. It is incapable of matching many other reactive plays.


Shared Summons will see plenty of play in low power, casual groups. It is simply too expensive to see real play in optimized lists (competitive or not), and too restrictive to be even remotely comparable to Gifts Ungivin.

Your example is faulty, because no one is giving you your reanimation spells in that gifts pile. With punisher cards you must always assume your opponent will give you the worst option given the game state at that point. So it is almost exactly the same as fetching mikaeus and triskelion directly.

Except that you also just threw two of your reanimation spells in the bin where they are not necessarily easy to reuse. I have lost games due to using my intuition package if animate, bloodline and timestream in inalla and having both my reanimation spells binned all game.

It's a small point but relevant. It could be an advantage too since yard is a resource.

I do think shared summons is hot garbage, but telegraphing Mike and trike with either spell is horrendous magic. Having to cast them and resolve them in succession is infinitely worse than tooth and nail.

Gifts is far more relevant to spell combo and summons is more relevant to value creature decks.

Shared summons more useful getting say, palinchron and spellseeker or something.

I think an instant speed tutor that can fetches up a 2 card win combo is very strong, even at 5 mana. You can sit there with your mana untapped with just this one card in hand and pull out a win with an otherwise unthreatening board. It's extremely...non-commital? You just need to have your combo of choice in your deck and you get access to EOT tutor untap win. You also don't really have to telegraph it because it's an instant tutor straight to hand.
kiki-jiki and friend, mike and trike, protean hulk + sac outlet, one of the infinite persist lines, godo(but this can be done with a single creature tutor), I'm sure there are others.

This is on top of value applications of things like fetching eternal witness + 1 to recur your tutor or utility etb effects.

Anyways more to the point there continues to be nothing about gifts that warrants it being on the banlist. Shared summons probably isn't even on the radar for being banned despite being extremely similar in application.

I'm not sure about the card.. It sounds like something like Tooth and Nail, or something like Protean Hulk.
It can be used for broken nonsense, but it also has a lot of fair uses. It would definitely go in one or two of my decks.