MTG Salvation

I think this could be pretty good with Welder/ Urza deck.

I could see this as a pretty good engine played on turn 1 and maybe not used until turns 4-5 until the player runs out of gas.

This card looks super sweet. Cheap discard outlet, Saga target, value engine, card selection, mana sink, ramp, fixing, token engine ...and the discard caveat is a may, which means your activations are safe when they're critical. I think this is going to be good.

This is too clunky for me. Two mana is a lot to pay for looting. I think it's too dependant on other cards to fuel it.

I'm waffling a lot back and forth on the card, but I'll give it a shot.
I think by itself, it's pretty weak. Very slow to generate value and the type of value it creates isn't that impactful.
2 mana to loot is nice in a grindy mid-late game, but early-mid game or in a tempo situation, it's unpractical.

WHY I still like it: Decks that will want this card, also tend to have a lot of other looting effects.
When paired with other looting effects, it can generate multiple permanents/mana for very little cost.

Cheap artifacts are always better than they look because of Tinker value, Tolarian academy value, hellbent value (draw 7's) and tutor value.

I'll give it a spin, but not convinced yet

I know this is different because it’s a colorless artifact, but Cryptbreaker was super disappointing for us. It was never even good or needed in Reanimator decks.

I like this better than Reckoner Bankbuster, which was close, but didn't make the cut. It can ramp you a bit and provide a board presence when you're behind. That goes a long way on a hand-manipulation artifact.

I think I'd rather have Bankbuster in a fair deck over this every time.

I run an unpowered fair-ish cube - no Griselbrands or Urzas Sagas here. So I don't think it's going to pull it's weight.

I think this card is pretty nuts as long as a Cube has a decent amount if discard outlets.

Quote from steve_man »

Now that we have a list of the possibilities, it's much easier to see a different lines of play such as


- Playing this on turn 1 in conjunction with Mox Diamond to potentially set you up for 4 mana by turn 2.

- Getting a 2/2 every turn for everytime you activate Survival of the Fittest / Fauna Shaman.

- Get a treasure every time you cycle / channel a land.

- Get a 2/2 every time you cycle / channel a non-land.

- Mitigate targeted discard effects against black decks.

- While technically not a discard outlet by itself, Library of Alexandria can be used to force a discard on end step if you really want to make a 2/2 or ramp next turn with a treasure.

When you combine all this with the fact that it also comes with its own built-in looting and is fetchable with Urza's Saga, I think the appeal of this card becomes much higher. There's so many broad applications, and the fact that it's a looting effect that reanimator will 100% maindeck means it'll always at least have an audience of one.

/\ /\ /\ This.

Card looks amazing imo. Favorite card in a while.

I agree with everything Steve_Man said, but it should also be mentioned that with even just 2 or 3 discards from another source, like a Liliana of the Veil or a Smuggler's Copter, this thing can actually represent a huge amount of stats for cheap, even pretty early in the game for fair decks. The fact that a cheap, colorless looter can also represent mana acceleration towards a big Living Death or Moat OR an army of 2/2 tokens is unreal. This can absolutely be a tangible win condition in the right circumstances. Gives me serious Jace, Vryn's Prodigy vibes.

Maybe I'm underestimating the inconvenience of that 2cmc activation cost, but I'm having trouble seeing this as anything short of fantastic. It can go in so many decks and be good, even without all the cute (but super easily utilized) synergies.

Maybe I underestimated this at first consideration… The combos with other discard effects makes it a lot more interesting to be sure.

I feel like a 1 mana artifact that has tap and pay 2 to loot is already good enough to consider running. Which means that the extra value and discard synergy this card provides is just so much gravy. Ship it!

I really like this card. I've played Bag of Holding in the past, and this card alleviates many of the problems the bag had, namely the forced exile and high mana-intensiveness. Having more Urza's Saga targets is always nice.

Interesting card. I think I can find room to try this since it works well with a bunch of cards I already really like. Jalum Tome in steroids!

This card is really unique. Want to give it a spin at 360 but that's a high bar. My old 540 would definitely play it.

Appreciate all the dialog in the thread & examples!

Quote from Mangolassi »

I really like this card. I've played Bag of Holding in the past, and this card alleviates many of the problems the bag had, namely the forced exile and high mana-intensiveness. Having more Urza's Saga targets is always nice.

This card would be stone ucubable as a 1 mana artifact that cost 2 to loot, unless you were doing an all artifacts cube or something. That's just way too much mana to never be up a card. This card will live or die based on how many cards in a given cube combo with the 2nd ability, as that's where the actual value is. My guess is it won't actually get to activate that often in most games in my cube, which means I think it will be a miss, but I could be wrong.

The nice thing is that it combos with itself.

In general, I find cards like this are better the more unfair your cube is.

Quote from ThatOneNinja »

I think I'd rather have Bankbuster in a fair deck over this every time.

I run an unpowered fair-ish cube - no Griselbrands or Urzas Sagas here. So I don't think it's going to pull it's weight.

I played bankbuster a lot during Neon draft and it was a fantastic card. The problem is the crew 3 - if it was crew 1 or 2 instead, it would be a very different story.

interesting card for sure. Initially I was pretty skeptical but there are some good examples here that make me want to give it a spin.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

The nice thing is that it combos with itself.

Sure but spending 3 mana and pitching a real (nonland) card to get a 2/2 isn't worth it, nor really is spending 2 and a real card each time after (and you don't get a creature until turn 3, then 5), nor is spending 3 mana to loot and get a treasure, although having access to 4 mana on turn 3 in non-green decks is nice. But you're still down a card at that point because you had to play this durdly artifact. It's also a pretty heinous topdeck if you're hellbent.

This reminds me of a lot of cards we've seen before that do a lot of stuff, feel like they have a lot of cool interactions, but end up just not doing enough in most games. I'm getting strong trading post vibes from this card, which is another thing people were pretty high on initially that just ended up not doing enough (and that was a very different time when cube was slower). It just feels like in modern tuned cubes it's hard to justify cards like this as going turn 1 this, turn 2 loot, turn 3 get a 2/2 and a 3 drop just gets you run over by an aggro deck. Or a ramp deck. Or a combo deck.

Evaluating this based off a single activation where the discarded card isn't giving you value from the 'yard is an incomplete evaluation. This card will be going into decks that both want to be actively discarding cards and that have multiple instances of discard synergy (both deliberate and incidental). Paying 3 mana to loot and get a 2/2 isn't great. But that's not what this card will be doing. You'll be making a 2/2 while also discarding a Bloodghast or Griselbrand, which you wanted to discard anyways but are now stapling free value to it. You'll be adding free treasure tokens and 2/2 creatures to cards that you'll be discarding anyways, because you're casting a Faithless Looting, activating a Liliana/Dack, or connecting with a Seafaring Werewolf. There's value in a colorless discard outlet that can prep for T3 reanimation. There's value in early treasure creation for colorless ramp/fixing. There's value in stapling 2/2 creatures to your cards that were being cycled/discarded anyways. There's value in protecting your hand from discard effects. There's value in being able to have something to spend your mana on every turn for the rest of the game no matter what. Retrofitter Foundry has shown that 1 mana utility artifacts that provide mana outlets to do proactive things are useful things to have access to, and this card not only does something similar, but it also provides value to decks that can take advantage of the looting and the discard synergy. If you look at this and see Trading Post instead of Retrofitter Foundry, I would advise trying to take a closer look. 4 mana + activation costs ≠ 1 mana + activation costs. You're talking about playing this card and getting run over by aggro or combo, but in reality, this card will be the one IN the combo decks enabling reanimation or discard combo shenanigans. I look at this card and see a fixed version of cards that have tried to do something similar to this in the past and were missing components to make them competitive. The "may" clause is critical and the token/treasure activation costs 0 mana. And I actually disagree about this getting run over by aggro. Being able to make 2/2 blockers at instant speed is nothing to scoff at, and remember that you don't need to use this as your primary game plan unless that's the right line to take. Just because you can go "all in" on this card doesn't mean you have to. The card doesn't force you to play bad Magic. Activate it when you have the free mana at the end of your opponent's turn. Put it in decks that want a cheap discard outlet and have discard synergy. Basically, don't just chuck this into a random deck and assume that making 2/2's with it is all it does for you, because I agree that if that's all you're using it for, it's not amazing. Luckily, we won't be playing it in decks where it's bad, or activating it in situations where it's not ideal. So we expect it to play quite well for us.