MTG Salvation

Westvale Abbey

T: Add C to your mana pool
5, T, pay 1 life : put a 1/1 white and black Human Cleric creature token onto the battlefield.
5, T sacrifice five creatures : Transform Westvale Abbey, then untap it.

INTO

Ormendahl, Profane Prince
Legendary creature - Demon
(black)
Flying, lifelink, indestructible, haste
9/7

This seems very interesting as an additional angle of attack for decks like WG or WR tokens to completely go over the top in some matchups. It has possibilities in everything given enough time (ala Dark Depths, but while actually tapping for mana), so it's not even unreasonable in decks with few creatures but instead many cheap, interactive elements. Thoughts?

This is such a weird card! I like it a lot. I was really surprised that it doesn't require you to sacrifice five clerics, which seems like something wizards would have done. Five creatures is not insanely difficult either, especially for a token deck. I think this card is worth testing.

It's really cool, but man... that activation cost is steep. 5 (effectively 6 mana) and a life for a 1/1 is a lot. And even for token decks, sacrificing 5 creatures is a bunch of creatures. Looks fun and flavorful, but it's probably a pass for me.

5 creatures is a lot, but a 9 power hasty flying indestructible lifelinker will probably win you the game.

I think you would have to be pushing tokens pretty hard to cube this because in most cases this is just unplayable. If you do have the 5 creatures and 6 mana to spend though, the demon is pretty crazy lol. It's definitely a high risk, high reward card. I think I'll pass for now but maybe one day. In the meantime it will have a nice home in my Prossh edh deck.

In a deck engineered to put 5 tokens to the board with regularity, the tokens, skullclamps, anthems, battle cry triggers, sac outlets, oppositions and other such token synergy cards will probably win you the game too. 5 creatures is a lot to sacrifice.

I'm not writing this land off, just saying that the costs are high.

Correct name is:
Westvale Abbey // Ormendahl, Profane Prince

Posted by wizards on reddit.

They could have made this a mythic and pushed it a little harder. At the very least a lower activation cost to make the 1/1 would have made this more considerable for cube. Five feels like a metric ton of mana for a measly little 1/1, even if you are working toward a 9/7 game winner.

I am very excited about this card. It may not be very easy but as people say with all the lands, the opportunity cost is so low. Much like Mirrorpool I think it won't be used very often but when it is.... dang. Tight lists probably aren't running the colorless cards and can't run too many colorless lands, but mid sized lists should give this a spin. I feel like porphorous decks are happy to have a low oppurtunity cost token producer and payoff card. Sercure the wastes and big token producers seem good. We have Seige Gang Commander, Cloudgoat Ranger, Myr Battlesphere, and Deranged Hermit which all make quite a bit of tokens.

I also like it in green decks, my cube mostly does creature ramp, and green can handle the colorless land the best. If you run Gaea's Cradle and Creterhoof Behemoth this card may be for you.

Being able to activate it at instant speed is nice too, as a backup plan in response to a sweeper or wrath, etc. So they'll either die to your swarm of tiny guys or your giant demon...

And as you say, it is a way to transform some mana dorks into tangible value in the late game once you have all the mana you need. I'll test it out and see how it does. Activation costs are high, but the opportunity cost is low.

Edit: It can also be a maindeckable out to Moat ...a card that gives both token decks and mana-dork ramp decks fits.

Yea, I think the key here is the low opportunity cost. This is not a high risk high reward card. It's a low risk card with a high risk/high reward ability that you have total control over activating. There are also so many creatures that make multiple bodies and creature counts can add up fast. Pia and Kiran, Rabblemaster, Ophiomancer, Hero of Bladehold, Brimaz, ect, ect ect... Seriously, this card probably great in token decks, but also playable in midrange, agro, ramp ect. I think this will be a great cube card and make for lots of fund stories.

The fact that it's colorless means any deck with a reasonable plan can take it. Five creatures is a lot to ask in a non-token deck though, so realistically it'll only slot into some deck like that.

Whatever, I'm still running myriad landscapes. This card is dripping with awesome, I'll likely play it for that reason alone. (Until we get a new actually good utility land.)

I can dig this. Not sure how often you'll end up turning this into a demon, but I imagine in the situations that you do it will often just win the game on the spot. We've been overloaded with sweet colorless lands as of late, but I'll be cutting Sea Gate Wreckage soon, so I'll see how well this runs in that slot.

Quote from steve_man »

A cubeable Dark Depths type card? You got my attention...

I like this card a lot, but finding a cut in my colorless / land section will be tough. I can see myself playing this in the future when we get more token generators. Cashing in Siege-Gang Commander / Derranged Hermit sounds like fun times.

You just described a 10+ mana investment. I think I will pass on this. I wish they made land token generators like they used to. (I'm looking at you, Kjeldoran Outpost)

I love that you play a token strategy and be clever on activating this. Since it's always a land you can use for mana it can be as deceptive as inkmoth nexus can be with instant speed tricks.

I'd play this in UB Aristocrats. It's so easy to get 5 creature to sac in this deck with Hangarback Walker, carrier thrall and Whirler Rogue. Plus with Zulaport Cuthroat you want to sac creatures. Think, sac 5 creatures with a cuthroat out and swing for 9. That's a 28 point swing in life.

So yeah, getting the demon into play is incredibly costly. But, what you get is pretty impressive. Uncounterable, flying, lifelink, indestructible, haste. A whole lot of cube decks simply cannot beat this creature if it's in play, and it doesn't take a spell slot. While this looks not good enough at first glance, its ability to break board stalls wide open and its difficulty to deal with, coupled with being a spell land, makes me think that it's testable.

Ehhhh... 5 creature+ board stalls are quite rare in powered cube.
Cashing them in for a creature that is vulnerable to exile spot removal, may also not be desirable.

Colorless lands come with a real cost in cube, as mana bases are generally quite a bit worse than constructed mana bases and there are already a plethora of colourless producing effects that they are competing with (includes off Color moxen)

Like most colourless utility lands, they will find the occasional home, but taking a cube slot for a colourless land that's only great in a narrow archetype, and even then is probably worse than a universally playable colourless land like a mutavault??

Cool card, but easy pass for me

Also loses to bounce once activated (and loses hilariously to Repeal). The upside is pretty big though. Once it's flipped, the opponent probably has one turn to find the answer. I'll at least try it out.

I'm not sure I want this over more easily activated lands like Myriad Landscape and that card is already on the fence.

It's a completely different kind of card. We don't have much we can really compare it to, other than the few utility lands that can produce tokens. It reminds me a little of Urza's Factory, in that you can use it to break late game stalls when you're flooded out. That's kinda what this is for too. It would be for allowing decks that are generally trying to go wide to audible into going big when they have to. There's some value in that, especially given the low opportunity cost. Ultimately the costs (both token making and transforming) will likely prove to be too high, but I want to test it and see. Since it's so fun and flavorful.