MTG Salvation

Close to playable by itself, and with enough walkers or ways to abuse it, I think it quite strong.

You only need to land one walker to pay for itself. 2+ walkers!? and you have a way above rate removal spell.

I'm pretty curious about what it might do if I give it a shot. I only run two black walkers at the moment, so the zombie clause seems weak. But, I do have some blink in my cube, and a Venser, the Sojourner or a Flickerwisp might make it a pretty solid investment.

I suspect that I'll need to support it further than I already do, to really justify it knocking out another card, though. I'll have to see what options are available.

Quote from steve_man »

Better than most other Oaths, but Fleshbag Marauder might still be better with recursion / Zombie synergy.

Hmmmm, not sure about that. Pretty complicated...

Versatility: In most cubes I suspect more decks will come together that would want Fleshbag than want Oath, but I'm not 100% sure. Black is the least represented planeswalker color, so oath would often be a splash, diminishing it's versatility. This ties in Oath's versatility to the mana fixing quality of your cube as well as your planeswalker concentration. Neither card is good outside of decks that synergize with it.

Upside: I think Oath of Liliana gets the edge here.
To recur fleshbag, it requires using resources, which come at an opportunity cost. Getting additional value out of Oath of liliana is a passive consequence of playing planeswalkers. Fleshbag has some cool synergizes that increase it's value, but I'm not sure that competes with a few free zombies for no additional cost.

Quote from steve_man »

As much as I'd love to split hairs with Fleshbag Marauder vs Oath of Liliana, this ultimately comes down to "do you want to play a 3-mana edict?" Liliana of the Veil aside, I like being able to target what I'm blowing up if I'm spending 3 mana for it.

This also competes with whatever that SOI creature / planeswalker edict is. Being able to blink Oath of Liliana is cool, but still not enough to entice me to pay 3 mana for an edict outside of multiplayer focused cubes.

I don't want to play a 3 mana edict that does nothing else, but I'd want to play a 3 mana edict that casts multiple 2/2 zombies on suspend

But if that is only going to happen in decks that come together once every four drafts... wouldn't be worth a slot in the cube.

If someone in your group regularly drafts superfriends, it's worth considering. Also happens to be great in multiplayer. But for us, it'll too often be a 3cc Cruel Edict that doesn't even fill my 'yard. Gonna pass on this one in this format.

At 1 it's solid. At 2 it's playable. At 3? Hard pass. Too bad, too. I feel most of these Oaths would be decent if WotC would just have the balls to push them a little harder.

At 1 mana, this would be pretty far beyond just "solid". It's solid as it is for non-cube formats.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

At 1 mana, this would be pretty far beyond just "solid". It's solid as it is for non-cube formats.

Yeah this spell at 1 mana would be absolutely ridiculous considering the precedent set.

I think it should be 'if you control a walker.' Looks so weak as a rare.

This at 2 would already be a better Cruel Edict, hardly a dud to begin with. At 1, a better-in-two ways Innocent Blood, also a good card. It would still be really pushed at BB. I think it's already borderline playable at 3 depending on cube composition and should be a slam inclusion for multiplayer cubes, so let's not wishlist too hard folks.

I'm a tougher judge regarding card quality (and less prone to hyperbole) than most. Substitute "Super strong" in place of "solid" if you must. My point stands. The card isn't good enough currently, and it would have been better off costing less. That's all. Not a terribly controversial opinion really.

I'd say, it's a well designed card at the right mana cost. It's just that those don't tend to make it into cube, unless they fill a particularly weak spot.

It's just about reasonable expectations. Yeah, a 1-mana version of this spell would be very very good, but it would be so obviously good and one of the best pieces of removal you could run in almost any non-token dominated format that they would never print it. It would be a brutal card in legacy, along with a lot of other formats. Like, imagine this card in jund at CMC 1 in either modern or legacy, it would be so dumb to go T1 this -> T3 liliana + zombie.

Quote from Edward Mass »

...it would have been better off costing less. That's all.

While this is true, this is true for almost any card you could name.


As it stands it is borderline playable, depending on how big your cube is and how high people draft superfriends. Its inclusion also depends on how often you reanimate the creature variants in your cube.

Quote from Salmo »

It's just about reasonable expectations.

After EMN spoilers and reactions, I feel the need to sig this.