The green Mother of Runes, was #2 on my list of top 20 underrated Cube cards a while back. I simply do not understand how this guy doesn't get more love, he has unbelievable impact for a one drop. Favorite game situations involving him are alongside Knight of the Reliquary/Tradewind Rider/Titania (or you know, literally ANY of the broken creatures Wizards loves to print nowadays), or when you search him up with other gems like Chord of Calling or Ranger of Eos.
If I can't make use of the land in my 'yard with multiple other cards in my deck, this won't make the cut in my final 40. A green Mother of Runes this is not.
We have been playing him at 420 in 8 man drafts of a powered cube. He is pretty strong in supporting aggro. He is almost always drafted into a UGx aggro deck as he starts making it easy to load up a dude with equipment or riding Mox for mana because you generally do not need a lot of mana to keep the tempo train rolling.
He has been seeing a lot of play in my 420 powered. He will also fall into Stax decks with Titania that can recycle the lands with Loam or Crucible to get continuous value.
Card did more work last night with Aggro & swords for us. Our group seems to really enjoy this card. I guess I might replace it with Mother of Runes and see what do. The fact that you can use it to protect a creature in play when suiting up with equipment is kind of a big deal, especially when it only cost 1 mana and you can sac the spent mana to just lock in a value beater.
The art on the commander version is really sweet, and that made me give this guy another shot not too long ago.
But the cost of sacing a land is pretty severe. I just can't get past it. Later in the game, it's OK (especially if it saves your win condition), but this card's ability is unusable early in my experience. You simply can't stone rain yourself before T4 without basically putting yourself too far behind. Even with life from the loam, you need time to recover. That play still doesn't mitigate the cost of sacing your own land (outside exploration or something).
I want to like this card. Those who swear by it, how are you using it exactly and what is your meta like?
The art on the commander version is really sweet, and that made me give this guy another shot not too long ago.
But the cost of sacing a land is pretty severe. I just can't get past it. Later in the game, it's OK (especially if it saves your win condition), but this card's ability is unusable early in my experience. You simply can't stone rain yourself before T4 without basically putting yourself too far behind. Even with life from the loam, you need time to recover. That play still doesn't mitigate the cost of sacing your own land (outside exploration or something).
I want to like this card. Those who swear by it, how are you using it exactly and what is your meta like?
People like to play UGx Aggro and will use it as a Mother of Runes of sorts. My cube is powered, so Moxen will generally help push creatures out quickly and start using lands to protect their creatures that they suit up with any of the swords. The benefit of this card over Mother of Runes is that it only cost G and you can sac lands immediately. The deck really only needs 3 or 4 mana and a mox to do what it needs to do anyways. It also allows the player to play UG and splash black for more disruption and tempo gain where white does not entirely provide that as easily because the color is more balanced and dipped into for more diverse reasons.
In addition, people like to try and force GWB stacks decks, which Sylvan Safekeeper can fit into well by allowing you to trade a land to protect a value creature if you need to or simply start triggering Titania, Protector of Argoth. You also can aim to pick up Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam in slot them into the deck for all the value.
Sylvan Safekeeper fits well into those archetypes people that cube with me like to push for and he sees play almost every time he shows up in cube. Even the Red Green aggro players will pick him up to make sure they can keep a Hero of Oxid Ridge or Hellrider alive for another turn.
I think this card is overlooked because it has a significant drawback as a cost to use the ability, where it only requires you to tap Mother of Runes - but Mother of Runes does things quite differently in that it is protection and not hexproof and she also cannot do anything until you untap with her and finally, they can both slot into very different decks where Mother of Runes does not have crazy and fun interactions that Sylvan Safekeeper does.
Sylvan Safekeeper just needs to to push the archetypes you want it to be in and if you do that, the card is fantastic and undeserving of all the hate in my opinion.
You've made some valid points about the card. Enough that this makes me think about giving it a twist and test it for real in the cube. Interactions with card like Titania seems also pretty attractive to me.
But I'm still a bit skeptical about his use in some more normally on curve agressive decks. I think that in a lot of cases, I would just prefer to play another agressive 1-drop because moxes isn't something you gettin to play every draft and that you still need to cut some power in order to include the keeper. At a 8-man table that is running a small cube, I assume he could be fine though, but we tend to do a lot of glimpse drafts, so people are used to burn moxes a lot when its off-color for them. But again, if you have pieces of equipment or if you want your specific guy to live, I think he could be just fine. Will brainstorm on that.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. My meta is a bit different but I'm going to take another look and see if there is an archetype this could slot into. Without fast mana or true aggro decks, this card really needs to be a later game play to protect your board state or combo piece. That makes it a little more narrow but the effect is certainly a strong one (and just gets better as the game goes on), and the threat of activation can change how your opponent plays (even force play mistakes). I do enjoy cards like that.
You've made some valid points about the card. Enough that this makes me think about giving it a twist and test it for real in the cube. Interactions with card like Titania seems also pretty attractive to me.
But I'm still a bit skeptical about his use in some more normally on curve agressive decks. I think that in a lot of cases, I would just prefer to play another agressive 1-drop because moxes isn't something you gettin to play every draft and that you still need to cut some power in order to include the keeper. At a 8-man table that is running a small cube, I assume he could be fine though, but we tend to do a lot of glimpse drafts, so people are used to burn moxes a lot when its off-color for them. But again, if you have pieces of equipment or if you want your specific guy to live, I think he could be just fine. Will brainstorm on that.
We seat from 6-8 at our draft, and as I said, I push archetypes that he happens to be quite good in. I have my normal Red/White/Green aggro combo, but I also have some blue aggro support that splashes with green pretty much every time it is drafted. He also has support in another completely different archetype.
If you only support 1 archetype that he slots into, I can see him simply being underwhelming and really his value is built into how the cube is designed. I think people simply dismissing it as not being powerful enough are wrong to really be dismissing it in the way that they have.
You only have to look at the Oath of Druids thread to see how a card can be dismissed simply because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective. Sylvan Safekeeper is really no different.
So I would say he is playable in a small cube that effectively supports any two archetypes that can make use of his ability - whether it be hexproof as a trick pony, or land recursion/trigger value. Heck you can add Land Tax to the list of usable cards as well with him as well. I am sure there are plenty more archetypes and cards that can be used for something fun, interesting, and powerful, that is not even realized yet.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. My meta is a bit different but I'm going to take another look and see if there is an archetype this could slot into. Without fast mana or true aggro decks, this card really needs to be a later game play to protect your board state or combo piece. That makes it a little more narrow but the effect is certainly a strong one (and just gets better as the game goes on), and the threat of activation can change how your opponent plays (even force play mistakes). I do enjoy cards like that.
Sometimes people simply forget he has an ability because they are not familiar enough with the card and you can blow them out with it. Other times they have to just throw their hands in the air and accept that he has control over their ability to play spot removal. He is a fun card and when I included him, I really just wanted some crazy off the wall Titania tricks to happen once in rare while.
Turned out he is a house in powered green aggro decks and if you have swords to back him, he is just a beating - especially in UGx Aggro decks, which I have had a lot of fun seeing people play and it does pretty well.
[quote from="Zetsu_Sensei »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/615715-sylvan-safekeeper?comment=11"]
You only have to look at the Oath of Druids thread to see how a card can be dismissed simply because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective. Sylvan Safekeeper is really no different.
The upside of Oath of Druids and the upside of Safekeeper are really not comparable. Oath is worth building around, since it allows you do to something really broken. Safekeeper doesn't ever offer such a high ceiling. Oath can define your entire deck structure.
I think it's fallacious to suggest that people 'dismissed [Oath] because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective'. People have always understand how to build around Oath, since it's incredibly obvious. It tells you how to do it on the card itself. It's only relatively recently that the card has started to become more viable owing to the ease of building decks with Planeswalkers as the major threats; in the past, this wasn't really possible, since you would traditionally rely on creatures for most of your utility and just risk whiffing far too often.
Safekeeper has an awesome ability but the dreadful body is a huge strike against it. Even as a 1/2, I would look again at the card since it gains utility in being able to block certain creatures. I would be super keen to see a bear variant with a similar ability or something pushed at the 3 slot.
You only have to look at the Oath of Druids thread to see how a card can be dismissed simply because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective. Sylvan Safekeeper is really no different.
They're very different. Oath has an effect that's worth building around, and can't be effective;y cubed without doing so. Safekeeper is a card that plays in a deck already engineered to take advantage of lands being in the graveyard; it's nowhere near powerful enough to justify sculpting a deck around, or even modifying an existing deck to make it fit. While both cards are only playable in the right deck, Oath is worth crafting the right deck to fit Oath into it; whereas Safekeeper has to drop into an already drafted shell that can handle its drawback.
Also, Oath decks always existed whether you built around it or not. The only thing that changed is that people realized that Oath lets you get away with it. it is no different than slotting Oath into Reanimation decks as a way to cheat fatties into play or sticking Show an Tell or Sneak attack into more clunky midrange decks.
The fact that UG Aggro is an archetype that is going to be around with or without Safekeeper, as well as GWB Stax and plenty other seemingly obscure archetypes you could introduce into cube - mean that you still are not building around Sylvan Safekeeper.
... having to build around Safekeeper, that is truly kind of rubbish thinking.
As for being powerful enough, you say that as if Cube has a set standard and you as much as any active cuber should know that cubes can be drastically different and still incredibly balanced. You can push any archetype as hard as you want and let up on any archetype as much as you want. UG Aggro is probably one of the best archetypes in my cube when someone gets into it. Is that going to be the same for every cube that tries to run it? Of course not. People design cubes differently and the power level of any archetype is only as powerful as the cards within the cube (and the designer) allow.
I love how people on here talk about cards as if the rest of the cube has a set standard.
Guess what, it doesn't. If everyone played the same cards because of their power rankings, cubes would be incredibly similar to each other.
I understand and agree with the idea of adding a card that happens to support multiple archetypes and just 'slotting into' theose decks, like Monastery Mentor works in spells matters and tokens decks. The problem is that personally, I wouldn't include Sylvan Safekeeper in any decks whatsoever, without several ways to abuse it. Including UG Aggro, where I can potentially protect my stuff with countermagic anyway. Especially not Stax, where my lands are extra valuable as needed sacrificeables for Braids and the like. Overall, it would require a very specific subset of cards present in my deck before I even considered SS for my final 40 (hence the build around comments), and I can't conceive many decks where it would make the cut even then.
Those sorts of cards which are just for a couple of specific archetypes are absolutely fine to have in the cube - Oath is one, for example - but they have to have a huge upside to justify the narrowness, which SS doesn't come close to in my opinion. Purphoros would be another example, where I have to be running a bunch of token effects, and be in red - as far as our decks go, that's a relatively small portion of the Venn diagram. He's such a blowout though, and the fact that he might actually draw people into that archetype, that I would be happy to run the card as an option. Again, SS would not actively draw me into that sort of deck at all. It's very cool that you have had success with the card, but I can say without having to try it out that it would not make much of an impact for our group at all.
I love how people on here talk about cards as if the rest of the cube has a set standard.
I don't know what this even means. Personally I am only discussing my group's standards for including cards, since I'm hardly qualified to say what anyone else's are. I'm only explaining why WE don't run SS, I'm not telling you why YOU shouldn't run it.
That said, depending on the future of any land recursion effects we may get, the card may yet reappear on our radar.
What I am saying is that 99% of the time, people in this Cube section ask about objective feedback on cards and the regulars give them subjective feedback.
Instead of pointing out how you could make the card in question work and why it would or would not work, people say thay the card has a bad body, or the effect is not worth the cost - without really considering how the format can ne built to account for whatever it is the card in question does.
So much explored design space in MTG, and cube designers her on Salvation only ever tap into a fraction of it with discussions.
What I am saying is that 99% of the time, people in this Cube section ask about objective feedback on cards and the regulars give them subjective feedback.
It's hard to make a clear distinction between objective and subjective feedback when it comes to cubing, since most of our advice comes from our own experiences. I can objectively say that Thoughtseize is a strong one mana discard spell in my 375 card powered cube, but any discussion about what archetypes it should go in, where it is most useful, what spells should be played alongside, is all subjective. Based on my/our findings. 'Safekeeper is good in our UG aggro decks' is not objective either, but it's still useful advice with context (which you correctly provided). Subjective advice is no less or more useful than objective advice, and much of the time it's all we can offer.
Instead of pointing out how you could make the card in question work and why it would or would not work, people say thay the card has a bad body, or the effect is not worth the cost - without really considering how the format can ne built to account for whatever it is the card in question does.
I'm explaining why WE don't run the card. I could have included a caveat whereby I envisaged some environment wherein SS is a powerhouse, but that would be so far removed from the environment I have, that it would not be helpful. I'll attempt this: if you run a cube with multiple Life from the Loams, multiple Crucible of Worlds, Restores etc., then probably I would pick Safekeeper much higher in that environment and put it in my 40. You can build a format warped enough to make ANY card good. The onus to make a case for a specific card is on the individual. If you want a card to be good, don't ask someone else to tell you how it's good. Or get upset if they disagree that it's good.
So much explored design space in MTG, and cube designers her on Salvation only ever tap into a fraction of it with discussions.
There is a ton of both tapped and untapped design space. This seems like quite the diversion from talking about the merits of Safekeeper though, and seems more like a jibe in the "you're too narrow minded to understand why this card in great in my cube!" vein. Well, you are telling people that they are wrong to "dismiss [it] simply because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective". No, people understand very well how to build archetypes. I understand the point of a card like Restore and what it is supposed to do. I can understand the cards that one would employ to synergise with it and the sort of deck that would look like. However, that doesn't mean that I would cube it myself. Or agree with someone else cubing it in a cube that looked similar to mine, based on my subjective experience. You gave a very good idea of what 'design space' the card operates in in your cube, but if other people say that it wouldn't function in a similar envelope in their own cubes, that doesn't mean they're being narrow-minded or 'do not understand how to build archetypes'.
I didn't say it had to be built around, I said it needs to slot into a deck that is designed to circumvent the drawback. The card doesn't do enough on its own to justify the drawback if you can't mitigate it somehow, IMHO.
And I'm not suggesting that it can't work for your playgroup, I'm explaining why it doesn't work for us.
And as an aside, Oath is better now than it was before, and has more shells it can see play in than it did before.
The cube forum is a place to share ideas, opinions and experiences. My experiences and opinions with this card have shown that it's not good enough. Yours are different, and that's okay. But I'm still going to express that I don't feel like it's the best option for the cube ...because I don't. Just as you're going to continue to champion for it. That dynamic is what makes this forum great, and also what makes the cube great as a format. I agree that if we all agreed on everything the cube format would be very stale, which is why everybody should run cards that they like that work for them. But that doesn't mean that people seeking feedback shouldn't get honest answers.
While I'm not sure how I feel about this card, you appear to be discussing its functionality as though it grants hexproof, when it really grants shroud. The difference is somewhat relevant. It doesn't knock colored stuff that's attached to a creature off (although this comes up almost never), but you can't strap equipment onto a creature while also activating this to stop an instant-speed removal spell that your opponent fires off in response to the equipment activation.
The reality iis that when someone asks about a card in cube, and it's playability, answers that say it is not a good card are less valuable than an answer saying it is a good card in XYZ and why it is good in XYZ. Why?
Because 99% of people are nit going to go digging for a cube list and sift through all of it to see what your cube does and why it is not good in order to figure out that while it is not good in ABC, it is good in XYZ. That is a lot of time and effort and seeing a list is not always a clear indication of everything that goes on in a cube.
If everyone were to spend more time pointing out merits of specific cards, in specific archetypes that support it, there would be a hell of a lot more progressive discussion because it actually turns wheels instead of stopping them. There is a lot of wheel stopping by a large portion of Cubers here a majority of the time.
You guys are not narrow minded, I am not saying that. I am saying the discussion is. You guys are awesome and I lije coming to this section more than anyone else...but when building my Cube, this section was mostly filled with stuff that did not help me decide what I really wanted in my cube because it is all primarily discussion on if a card is good or bad and the only true context requires me to spend even more time deciphering cubes found in links in signatures (if I was lucky enough that the poster even had a link).
Obscure context seems like a plague here and most of these threads are not actually a real discussion for aspiring cube designers imo.
My first comment was that it could be worth playing in a deck that has multiple ways to mitigate the drawback. So cubes that support multiple Loam/Land kinds of archetypes will get more use out of it than cubes that don't.
But in a cube that doesn't support those types of decks with regularity, I'd pass on Safekeeper.
Aspiring cube designers need to hear both sides of the argument. I don't think the card is good, and you do, and we've both listed the reasons why. So this thread has accomplished exactly what it set out to do, and aspiring cube designers have more information than they would if every card was coddled.
Threads full of "this card can be good for cubes that support a very specific kind of deck that makes it playable" isn't any more useful, and it provides disingenuous information. Sometimes that's the case, and other times people need to say "this card sucks". Keeping both pros and cons dialogue is important for aspiring cube designers to get all angles of opinion before forming their own.
I am not saying people should not state why a card is not good, I am saying this section should include more context. This thread is already ahead of the vast majority here in this part of the cube forum imo.
Anyways, sorry to derail the thread. PM me if you want to continue this discussion. If not, I appreciate the responses I got so far - we have just gotten away from Sylvan Safekeeper at this point.
I'm a big fan of adding more context to card discussions in particular, because I agree completely with Kamahl that a lot of cards simply can't be discussed productively in a vacuum. Safekeeper I see as one of those cards. It's effect is powerful, there is no question about that. In the right deck and situation, it's game winning powerful. Which attached to a 1 drop is something worth taking note of.
With that said... In my cube, I have removed a lot of bomb cards. I have no swords, no jitte, no Titan's to protect. I have no fast mana to offset early sacing of lands either. I also don't properly support hard aggro, so decks with mana curves that top at 3/4 simply don't exist. This guy in my meta has an ability that is not usable before turn 4 nine out of ten times. That doesn't mean he isn't worth a slot though because there are times when sacing a land is a billion times better than letting a removal spell blow me out in combat (Wolfir Silverheart anyone?). It also protects combo pieces (those few I have left). My gut says it's too narrow for my list.
But... I especially pay attention when someone argues vehemently for a card. It means that card not only has worked, but it has been an all-star in decks he/she has run. Maybe those decks don't overlap well with how my group drafts, but I always try to explore cards like this thoroughly.
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He has been seeing a lot of play in my 420 powered. He will also fall into Stax decks with Titania that can recycle the lands with Loam or Crucible to get continuous value.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
But the cost of sacing a land is pretty severe. I just can't get past it. Later in the game, it's OK (especially if it saves your win condition), but this card's ability is unusable early in my experience. You simply can't stone rain yourself before T4 without basically putting yourself too far behind. Even with life from the loam, you need time to recover. That play still doesn't mitigate the cost of sacing your own land (outside exploration or something).
I want to like this card. Those who swear by it, how are you using it exactly and what is your meta like?
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
People like to play UGx Aggro and will use it as a Mother of Runes of sorts. My cube is powered, so Moxen will generally help push creatures out quickly and start using lands to protect their creatures that they suit up with any of the swords. The benefit of this card over Mother of Runes is that it only cost G and you can sac lands immediately. The deck really only needs 3 or 4 mana and a mox to do what it needs to do anyways. It also allows the player to play UG and splash black for more disruption and tempo gain where white does not entirely provide that as easily because the color is more balanced and dipped into for more diverse reasons.
In addition, people like to try and force GWB stacks decks, which Sylvan Safekeeper can fit into well by allowing you to trade a land to protect a value creature if you need to or simply start triggering Titania, Protector of Argoth. You also can aim to pick up Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam in slot them into the deck for all the value.
Sylvan Safekeeper fits well into those archetypes people that cube with me like to push for and he sees play almost every time he shows up in cube. Even the Red Green aggro players will pick him up to make sure they can keep a Hero of Oxid Ridge or Hellrider alive for another turn.
I think this card is overlooked because it has a significant drawback as a cost to use the ability, where it only requires you to tap Mother of Runes - but Mother of Runes does things quite differently in that it is protection and not hexproof and she also cannot do anything until you untap with her and finally, they can both slot into very different decks where Mother of Runes does not have crazy and fun interactions that Sylvan Safekeeper does.
Sylvan Safekeeper just needs to to push the archetypes you want it to be in and if you do that, the card is fantastic and undeserving of all the hate in my opinion.
But I'm still a bit skeptical about his use in some more normally on curve agressive decks. I think that in a lot of cases, I would just prefer to play another agressive 1-drop because moxes isn't something you gettin to play every draft and that you still need to cut some power in order to include the keeper. At a 8-man table that is running a small cube, I assume he could be fine though, but we tend to do a lot of glimpse drafts, so people are used to burn moxes a lot when its off-color for them. But again, if you have pieces of equipment or if you want your specific guy to live, I think he could be just fine. Will brainstorm on that.
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http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
We seat from 6-8 at our draft, and as I said, I push archetypes that he happens to be quite good in. I have my normal Red/White/Green aggro combo, but I also have some blue aggro support that splashes with green pretty much every time it is drafted. He also has support in another completely different archetype.
If you only support 1 archetype that he slots into, I can see him simply being underwhelming and really his value is built into how the cube is designed. I think people simply dismissing it as not being powerful enough are wrong to really be dismissing it in the way that they have.
You only have to look at the Oath of Druids thread to see how a card can be dismissed simply because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective. Sylvan Safekeeper is really no different.
So I would say he is playable in a small cube that effectively supports any two archetypes that can make use of his ability - whether it be hexproof as a trick pony, or land recursion/trigger value. Heck you can add Land Tax to the list of usable cards as well with him as well. I am sure there are plenty more archetypes and cards that can be used for something fun, interesting, and powerful, that is not even realized yet.
Sometimes people simply forget he has an ability because they are not familiar enough with the card and you can blow them out with it. Other times they have to just throw their hands in the air and accept that he has control over their ability to play spot removal. He is a fun card and when I included him, I really just wanted some crazy off the wall Titania tricks to happen once in rare while.
Turned out he is a house in powered green aggro decks and if you have swords to back him, he is just a beating - especially in UGx Aggro decks, which I have had a lot of fun seeing people play and it does pretty well.
<3 this guy!
The upside of Oath of Druids and the upside of Safekeeper are really not comparable. Oath is worth building around, since it allows you do to something really broken. Safekeeper doesn't ever offer such a high ceiling. Oath can define your entire deck structure.
I think it's fallacious to suggest that people 'dismissed [Oath] because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective'. People have always understand how to build around Oath, since it's incredibly obvious. It tells you how to do it on the card itself. It's only relatively recently that the card has started to become more viable owing to the ease of building decks with Planeswalkers as the major threats; in the past, this wasn't really possible, since you would traditionally rely on creatures for most of your utility and just risk whiffing far too often.
Safekeeper has an awesome ability but the dreadful body is a huge strike against it. Even as a 1/2, I would look again at the card since it gains utility in being able to block certain creatures. I would be super keen to see a bear variant with a similar ability or something pushed at the 3 slot.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
They're very different. Oath has an effect that's worth building around, and can't be effective;y cubed without doing so. Safekeeper is a card that plays in a deck already engineered to take advantage of lands being in the graveyard; it's nowhere near powerful enough to justify sculpting a deck around, or even modifying an existing deck to make it fit. While both cards are only playable in the right deck, Oath is worth crafting the right deck to fit Oath into it; whereas Safekeeper has to drop into an already drafted shell that can handle its drawback.
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Also, Oath decks always existed whether you built around it or not. The only thing that changed is that people realized that Oath lets you get away with it. it is no different than slotting Oath into Reanimation decks as a way to cheat fatties into play or sticking Show an Tell or Sneak attack into more clunky midrange decks.
The fact that UG Aggro is an archetype that is going to be around with or without Safekeeper, as well as GWB Stax and plenty other seemingly obscure archetypes you could introduce into cube - mean that you still are not building around Sylvan Safekeeper.
... having to build around Safekeeper, that is truly kind of rubbish thinking.
As for being powerful enough, you say that as if Cube has a set standard and you as much as any active cuber should know that cubes can be drastically different and still incredibly balanced. You can push any archetype as hard as you want and let up on any archetype as much as you want. UG Aggro is probably one of the best archetypes in my cube when someone gets into it. Is that going to be the same for every cube that tries to run it? Of course not. People design cubes differently and the power level of any archetype is only as powerful as the cards within the cube (and the designer) allow.
I love how people on here talk about cards as if the rest of the cube has a set standard.
Guess what, it doesn't. If everyone played the same cards because of their power rankings, cubes would be incredibly similar to each other.
Those sorts of cards which are just for a couple of specific archetypes are absolutely fine to have in the cube - Oath is one, for example - but they have to have a huge upside to justify the narrowness, which SS doesn't come close to in my opinion. Purphoros would be another example, where I have to be running a bunch of token effects, and be in red - as far as our decks go, that's a relatively small portion of the Venn diagram. He's such a blowout though, and the fact that he might actually draw people into that archetype, that I would be happy to run the card as an option. Again, SS would not actively draw me into that sort of deck at all. It's very cool that you have had success with the card, but I can say without having to try it out that it would not make much of an impact for our group at all.
I don't know what this even means. Personally I am only discussing my group's standards for including cards, since I'm hardly qualified to say what anyone else's are. I'm only explaining why WE don't run SS, I'm not telling you why YOU shouldn't run it.
That said, depending on the future of any land recursion effects we may get, the card may yet reappear on our radar.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Instead of pointing out how you could make the card in question work and why it would or would not work, people say thay the card has a bad body, or the effect is not worth the cost - without really considering how the format can ne built to account for whatever it is the card in question does.
So much explored design space in MTG, and cube designers her on Salvation only ever tap into a fraction of it with discussions.
It's hard to make a clear distinction between objective and subjective feedback when it comes to cubing, since most of our advice comes from our own experiences. I can objectively say that Thoughtseize is a strong one mana discard spell in my 375 card powered cube, but any discussion about what archetypes it should go in, where it is most useful, what spells should be played alongside, is all subjective. Based on my/our findings. 'Safekeeper is good in our UG aggro decks' is not objective either, but it's still useful advice with context (which you correctly provided). Subjective advice is no less or more useful than objective advice, and much of the time it's all we can offer.
I'm explaining why WE don't run the card. I could have included a caveat whereby I envisaged some environment wherein SS is a powerhouse, but that would be so far removed from the environment I have, that it would not be helpful. I'll attempt this: if you run a cube with multiple Life from the Loams, multiple Crucible of Worlds, Restores etc., then probably I would pick Safekeeper much higher in that environment and put it in my 40. You can build a format warped enough to make ANY card good. The onus to make a case for a specific card is on the individual. If you want a card to be good, don't ask someone else to tell you how it's good. Or get upset if they disagree that it's good.
There is a ton of both tapped and untapped design space. This seems like quite the diversion from talking about the merits of Safekeeper though, and seems more like a jibe in the "you're too narrow minded to understand why this card in great in my cube!" vein. Well, you are telling people that they are wrong to "dismiss [it] simply because people do not understand how to build archetypes to support a certain card in a way that is more than effective". No, people understand very well how to build archetypes. I understand the point of a card like Restore and what it is supposed to do. I can understand the cards that one would employ to synergise with it and the sort of deck that would look like. However, that doesn't mean that I would cube it myself. Or agree with someone else cubing it in a cube that looked similar to mine, based on my subjective experience. You gave a very good idea of what 'design space' the card operates in in your cube, but if other people say that it wouldn't function in a similar envelope in their own cubes, that doesn't mean they're being narrow-minded or 'do not understand how to build archetypes'.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
And I'm not suggesting that it can't work for your playgroup, I'm explaining why it doesn't work for us.
And as an aside, Oath is better now than it was before, and has more shells it can see play in than it did before.
The cube forum is a place to share ideas, opinions and experiences. My experiences and opinions with this card have shown that it's not good enough. Yours are different, and that's okay. But I'm still going to express that I don't feel like it's the best option for the cube ...because I don't. Just as you're going to continue to champion for it. That dynamic is what makes this forum great, and also what makes the cube great as a format. I agree that if we all agreed on everything the cube format would be very stale, which is why everybody should run cards that they like that work for them. But that doesn't mean that people seeking feedback shouldn't get honest answers.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Because 99% of people are nit going to go digging for a cube list and sift through all of it to see what your cube does and why it is not good in order to figure out that while it is not good in ABC, it is good in XYZ. That is a lot of time and effort and seeing a list is not always a clear indication of everything that goes on in a cube.
If everyone were to spend more time pointing out merits of specific cards, in specific archetypes that support it, there would be a hell of a lot more progressive discussion because it actually turns wheels instead of stopping them. There is a lot of wheel stopping by a large portion of Cubers here a majority of the time.
You guys are not narrow minded, I am not saying that. I am saying the discussion is. You guys are awesome and I lije coming to this section more than anyone else...but when building my Cube, this section was mostly filled with stuff that did not help me decide what I really wanted in my cube because it is all primarily discussion on if a card is good or bad and the only true context requires me to spend even more time deciphering cubes found in links in signatures (if I was lucky enough that the poster even had a link).
Obscure context seems like a plague here and most of these threads are not actually a real discussion for aspiring cube designers imo.
I digress.
Sorry.
But in a cube that doesn't support those types of decks with regularity, I'd pass on Safekeeper.
Aspiring cube designers need to hear both sides of the argument. I don't think the card is good, and you do, and we've both listed the reasons why. So this thread has accomplished exactly what it set out to do, and aspiring cube designers have more information than they would if every card was coddled.
Threads full of "this card can be good for cubes that support a very specific kind of deck that makes it playable" isn't any more useful, and it provides disingenuous information. Sometimes that's the case, and other times people need to say "this card sucks". Keeping both pros and cons dialogue is important for aspiring cube designers to get all angles of opinion before forming their own.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Anyways, sorry to derail the thread. PM me if you want to continue this discussion. If not, I appreciate the responses I got so far - we have just gotten away from Sylvan Safekeeper at this point.
With that said... In my cube, I have removed a lot of bomb cards. I have no swords, no jitte, no Titan's to protect. I have no fast mana to offset early sacing of lands either. I also don't properly support hard aggro, so decks with mana curves that top at 3/4 simply don't exist. This guy in my meta has an ability that is not usable before turn 4 nine out of ten times. That doesn't mean he isn't worth a slot though because there are times when sacing a land is a billion times better than letting a removal spell blow me out in combat (Wolfir Silverheart anyone?). It also protects combo pieces (those few I have left). My gut says it's too narrow for my list.
But... I especially pay attention when someone argues vehemently for a card. It means that card not only has worked, but it has been an all-star in decks he/she has run. Maybe those decks don't overlap well with how my group drafts, but I always try to explore cards like this thoroughly.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/