MTG Salvation

Mimic Vat Is a really fun card, and is pretty bonkers in cube considering the many ETB triggers on creatures, as well as the usefulness of being able to repeatedly reanimate. It can also exile problematic reanimation targets of your opponents(having to only deal with a creature once is good). Through fun alone i would include this in any cube no matter what size it is. Its strong as well, with not a huge mana investment. The negatives include not immediately impacting, and needing something to die to be useful in the slightest.

In summation, super fun, pretty flexible, strong enough.
(i may be biased)

My favorite part is one activation usually makes it worth it. Extras are just extra value.

The card doesn't go in every deck, but when it gets played it is surprisingly powerful, often game-dominating - many creatures suddenly aren't allowed to die anymore, creating 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situations. I love Mimic Vat at 450, awesome and super fun card.

I thought it would just be a fun little token card when it came out, but it's become a powerhouse in my groups and people don't like passing it. I think it's great.

It seems to go alright in my 475 multiplayer. Sure, it can eat removal pretty quick, but if you can get a couple of activations off with almost any creature, it's amazing.

Vat is still hanging on in my 320. It's very good for midrange against other midrange and control matchups. Particularly the blue-based ones, which lack artifact destruction. It's not the ideal aggro card, but it's not that hard to make it work and get some decent late-game value out of it.

It's bad against red aggro which you expect has a lot of MD artifact hate. Seems good to great everywhere else. Had it played against me last night and it was a bear to beat.

It's a good card. It's capable of some really broken plays, and it has a lot of powerful interactions. I didn't play it at 360, but I'd certainly play it at 450+.

I rarely pass Mimic Vat. It protects you from wrath, most removal, and it makes your wraths and removal so much better.

Mimic Vat plays like a 3 mana colourless planeswaker. It creates the same sort of 'deal with this or lose' subgame.

Quote from magicmerl

Mimic Vat plays like a 3 mana colourless planeswaker. It creates the same sort of 'deal with this or lose' subgame.

This is a really good way of describing the vat. It's not always going to be completely bonkers, and sometimes it will do nothing for you, but if there is a chance a creature could die on the battlefield and you don't get rid of the Vat--especially if the creature has a relevant ETB effect--things will get extremely tough.

Quote from magicmerl

Mimic Vat plays like a 3 mana colourless planeswaker. It creates the same sort of 'deal with this or lose' subgame.

Vat is an incredibly powerful artifact and I'd likely always include it in any cube 360 or bigger. I've seen it do incredible things. To make a comparison it has been better in testing than Vedalken Shackles and I would still always play both. In may ways the Vat is less conditional.

Cheers,
H.G.

If you get the right creature under a Vat, you will likely win. Otherwise, it's "just" a way to get some value out of Wraths, other removal, and combat deaths. This Friday, I didn't draw into my artifact removal and my opponent got my Vendilion Clique under the vat. Sad times for me.

I'm not sure it makes the cut at 360 but I'd run it in any cube bigger than that.

Cheers,
rant

Quote from rantipole

I'm not sure it makes the cut at 360 but I'd run it in any cube bigger than that.

Cheers,
rant

Yeah, it's the worst artifact in my 320, and that's having left out Nev's Disk for it, which may be the wrong decision. Vat's just so much fun, and it is a legit game-breaker with many creatures underneath.

Quote from Goodking

Yeah, it's the worst artifact in my 320, and that's having left out Nev's Disk for it, which may be the wrong decision. Vat's just so much fun, and it is a legit game-breaker with many creatures underneath.

I think you made the right decision, and I agree that 320 is likely the lowest it will ever go. That being said, as CIP triggers get more powerful cards like Mimic Vat and Recurring Nightmare also get proportionally better.

What are people's thoughts on this card now?

I still play it in my powered 360, and I don't see cutting it anytime soon.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

It's a good card. It's capable of some really broken plays, and it has a lot of powerful interactions. I didn't play it at 360, but I'd certainly play it at 450+.

These are my feelings on it. We tried it at 360 for a bit, it was a little underwhelming compared to 450. At 540 it's amazing.

It's awesome in our 540 powered. I'd definitely run it at 450 because of the powerful effect & awesome Cube stories it provides. Not sure at 360 as I don't have enough experience with a small Cube.

Mimic Vat is the perfect Cube card...powerful, flashy, explosive, flavorful and just sweet.

I was under the impression that Mimic Vat gets better the smaller the cube is. It's a very high pick for us early in the draft as it's easier to build around. But it definitely still gets scooped up in later packs as it can go in decks that have a good amount of removal, or ETB/CIP dudes as a way to grind out value (Evoke guys and the Titans are especially sweet, also provides some protection against wrath effects).
Oftentimes it just takes 2 maybe 3 activations to get your money's mana's worth. The vat also goes in all kinds of decks here, from green based mid-range (eg. Reclamation Sage, Eternal Witness, and all the 5-drops in green), to blue tempo decks, from Grixis control, to Blink. Even Artifact.dec and Kiki-Jiki.dec will grind value from this.

Mimic Vat is one of those cards that gives me warm and fuzzy feelings inside so I'm nowhere near cutting it from my cube.

Mimic Vat has never been bad for us, and it has often been anywhere from great to downright oppressive. Even just having it sit on the board significantly alters the way your opponent plays. I can understand how it might feel slow in powered cubes, but in unpowered environments it packs a wallop.

Quote from hardb0dy »

I was under the impression that Mimic Vat gets better the smaller the cube is.

I think this is true, but the gain is small compared to other cards that work like this (like Yawgmoth's Will, which I'll explain below). Even if Mimic Vat gets a little better each time the cube gets smaller, it's in competition with other cards to take its slot, and those cards are just better than Mimic Vat is. It works on about the same scale as other cards that can interact with a wide range of cards.

For instance, I think you could argue that Diabolic Servitude gets better as the cube gets smaller because you have a higher chance of seeing good reanimation targets, and the overall creature quality is better, so even if you're just reanimating a four drop in a 360 cube, it's going to be better than a four drop in a 720 cube, on average. However, Diabolic Servitude doesn't make many 360s because the competition is too fierce for it to stay in.

I think Mimic Vat follows the same principle.

-------

I think very few cards work like Yawgmoth's Will where the card gets better the smaller the cube is, and the jumps are so noticable that it actually makes the card attractive enough to run even with the increase in competition for its slot.

Here's all the ones I can think of that would go in what I'm referring to as the "Good at 360, bad at 3,600" category:

• Yawgmoth's Will (higher chance of seeing Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Rituals, Tutors, etc -- this is definitely the epitome card of this category)
• Past in Flames (many same reasons as Yawg Will)
• Flash (only a few really great targets for it, so you have a higher chance of seeing them)
• Personal Tutor (higher chance of seeing great targets worth the card disadvantage)
• Merchant Scroll (higher chance of seeing great targets)
• Entomb (higher chance of seeing great targets)
• Imperial Recruiter (higher chance of seeing great targets and/or combo cards -- this can be argued it's not even bad at 3,600)
• Time Vault (higher chance of seeing combo cards)
• Squee, Goblin Nabob (I think this one is debatable too, but there will be much more good stuff to do with it at 360 than 3,600)
• Gorilla Shaman (higher chance of blowing up moxes)
• Tendrils of Agony (storm has been decent at 540, and the drop in overall power level keeps it only a tiny bit worse than it is at 360, but as an archetype I think it gets better the smaller the cube is, as long as you have the necessary support. The support for storm is finite, so there is absolutely no way storm would be good in a cube size of 3,600.)

Some cards like assorted tutors (Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, etc) get better the smaller the cube gets as well, but they should be in every cube size, so I'm not listing them here -- same thing with Animate Dead or literally any draw spell. They don't fit the "Good at 360, bad at 3,600" category because they're good at 3,600.

I just did a cursory check of all the cards in my 720 cube, and those are actually the only ones I found on first glance that work like that.

[EDIT: I considered putting landfall cards like Plated Geopede and Steppe Lynx on the list, but I don't think they fit the model either. Yes, you have an increased chance of hitting fetch lands, but Plated Geopede and Steppe Lynx would be much better at 3,600 than they would be at 360 because the quality of other one and two drops is so ridiculously poor that they would stand out even more than they do when they're competing with Mother of Runes and Goblin Guide.

I think Tarmogoyf is in the same camp, although that card is just straight up odd when considering its factors in this discussion. I like Tarmogoyf much more at 540 than I did at 360, so I think it shouldn't be included, based on personal experience.

Life from the Loam is REALLY odd because I think it does fit this model, but it's not very good at 360 because of the competition. Having access to more fetches and combo pieces makes the card better, but there comes a point when LFTL just does not stack up to the other competition in green, IMO. I think LFTL doesn't make the cut at 360, is good enough to make the cut at 450-720, but would would be horrible at 3,600. If we somehow got more support for LFTL that was 360 quality, I can see it fitting this list just fine. This is the weirdest card on this entire post, IMO.

I think Buried Alive and Intuition also work like LFTL (but to a lesser extent because they're worse cards) where they're not good enough at 360-540, but they're better in those cubes than they would be in enormous cubes.]

So yeah, 10 cards + an archetype, and the only cards that people commonly run and definitely fit the model are Yawgmoth's Will, Personal Tutor, Entomb, Squee, Goblin Nabob, and Gorilla Shaman. Maybe Life From The Loam.

I could have definitely missed some cards, but it's a pretty small club IMO.

I currently love it in 450 powered.

Quote from ColbyCube »

Life from the Loam is REALLY odd because I think it does fit this model, but it's not very good at 360 because of the competition. Having access to more fetches and combo pieces makes the card better, but there comes a point when LFTL just does not stack up to the other competition in green, IMO. I think LFTL doesn't make the cut at 360, is good enough to make the cut at 450-720, but would would be horrible at 3,600. If we somehow got more support for LFTL that was 360 quality, I can see it fitting this list just fine. This is the weirdest card on this entire post, IMO.

Funny enough this is the card I am currently trying to make room for again. It's true the competition is stiffer in a smaller list but there is also a higher concentration of cards that really work well with it. There aren't a whole lot more quality reanimation spells outside of the ones already run in a small list. You're also more likely to hit fetches and that Strip Mine/Wasteland, and there's no more of those types of cards outside the ones used in smaller lists already. And if you need another discard outlet in green outside of Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman and Wild Mongrel, this is the best choice. I'm trying to figure out if there is enough artifact/enchantment removal in my green section to make room for me to include this.

As for Mimic Vat I do think the gain isn't small. It is significantly better because you're more likely to get those specific creatures that are really disgusting to mimic (there's maybe just a dozen or so of them) and quality ETB guys at a higher concentration. Yes you'll have to go without a Scroll Rack, Ankh of Mishra, Black Vise, etc in order to fit it in a smaller list - but you're also getting something better, on average, with the Mimic Vat for the same activation cost in a smaller list. You're more likely to hit Eternal Witness, Baleful Strix, and Mystic Snake and you can have them all in the same deck. There's also not a whole lot more quality ETB dudes that we don't run in smaller lists that are ran in medium/larger sized cubes, so it's harder to build decks with just more of them in it.

Edit: added card tags

I think Life From the Loam easily makes the cut at 360.

I think Life from the Loam is great anywhere from 360-720.

Cards like these tend to get better or worse based on the "maturity" of the cube group i.e. How much cube have you guys been playing together. The more a person cubes, the more likely he is to pick cards like LFTL.