MTG Salvation

Goose has overperformed, and I can’t quite explain why. I initially thought the one-shot mana creation would be too much of a downside, but the upside synergies for a one mana play make the card quite good overall.

Thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate it!

Interesting to see how positive the reaction is here. As with all things cube, the painful part is to find a cut... is it worth cutting one of the one mana dorks in order to have a more diverse group of one mana accelerants? Or is it the case that, despite the positivity, I should still be looking elsewhere for a cut if I am trying to include it.

I like Gilded Goose a lot. It doesn't provide the consistent mana regeneration like other 1-drop dorks, but I've been impressed by it. The lifegain (and occasional incidental artifact interaction) is nice, and it's a 1-drop that has something to do when you're not in need of the ramp any more.

Also, being a flier provides some additional relevance in green, either for a crucial blocking turn or occasionally wearing equipment.

Hey everyone. Thanks so much for your replies.

It seems that Glided Goose is also played heavily in modern in not just Oko- Urza decks but in company decks. (https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=26606&d=405416&f=MO).

I'll add Goose into my cube and see how it plays

its been the worst of my 1 drop dorks but still good enough to crack the list.

Quote from Visserdrix »

its been the worst of my 1 drop dorks but still good enough to crack the list.

Thats what I thought about goose as well.

I've left it in but I will say that every time I've played it I felt like it didn't really help very much. I've been pretty disappointed with it.

I think it’s better than Boreal Druid and probably equal to albeit more exciting than Elves of Deep Shadow. I agree that all the other dorks are better than it though.

Thanks for the responses everyone - I am going to try it out instead of one of my 2cc ramp creatures in green (probably instead of Tangled Florahedron) rather than in the place of another 1cc ramp creature, based on the responses here that mostly seem in agreement that goose is good but not better than any of the traditional 1 drop dorks I already run. Once we've had a chance to see what it feels like to play with it, I'll report back what my thoughts are on whether that was a good trade to make in order to get him into my cube or not!

How did your testing go tylor? I've long been on the fence about this bird and have received contrasting feedback from my drafters.

Gilded Goose gets better the more a cube can take advantage of its other synergies, such as:

- It can create artifacts for cards like urza, cranial plating, tolarian academy
- It creates repeatable lifegain triggers
- It creates repeatable sacrifice triggers (great with mayhem devil)
- It creates any color of mana, supports 3-5 color decks better

That is one thing I always advocated about Gilded Goose. Many people seem to rank it rather low, while I personally rate it at about the same rate as Birds of Paradise. There are so many synergies with the card that combined make it an amazingly valuable cube card that I anticipate to play for many years!

with the printing of ignoble hierarch i just dont think goose is needed anymore.

That is exactly my point - Gilded Goose serves so many different purposes instead of only fixing and ramping that I do not consider it as a mana dork exclusively. It blocks most flying tokens, is amazing in stalled board constellations, carries equipment in the air, creates artifact tokens for Tinker, Braids, Cabal Minion, Smokestack, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Urza's Saga, Karn, Scion of Urza, Tangle Wire, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Breya's Apprentice.

As a Mana dork, it might not be needed, but I like the card for everything else it brings to the table. When the time comes and another Hierarch is printed, I'm not sure whether I'll cut Gilded Goose or something like Llanowar Elves. I'm already at the number of 1CMC Mana Dorks I like, so I don't need to include another one and sacrifice such a versatile creature like the Goose for it.

I like Gulded Goose and include it at 360, but going 3-drop on turn 2 and being unable to go 4-drop on turn 3 is a very real downside.

Edit: looking back at this thread, I see I said nearly the exact same thing in January.

Periodically I compare my 450 unpowered against five other 450 unpowered cubes that are regularly updated and with a similar design philosophy. Just happened to perform this review two days ago and was surprised to find running Gilded Goose was an outlier - four of the other five cubes no longer ran it. I personally think it still merits a slot, but it was food for thought.