MTG Salvation

Perfect set. 10/10. No notes.

Plus two colors to get +1/+1 and trample? Sign me up.....
So we're gonna get like 40 cards wasted purely off of being 3 color.

Quote from Leelue »

So we're gonna get like 40 cards wasted purely off of being 3 color.

Three color sets generally are pretty bad for us. I expect this to be no different. Just hope we have good options scattered in there somewhere.

Well we finished the triland cycle with the first Tarkir set. Hopefully 10 years of power creep will get us something even better (how has it been 10 years, there's no way).

We're old people now.

Skirmish Rhino is an insane card. I don't play 3 color cards, but if I did.... jesus.

The day of your birth is closer to the moon landing than it is to today

Quote from Leelue »

The day of your birth is closer to the moon landing than it is to today

delete this post.

Quote from Leelue »

The day of your birth is closer to the moon landing than it is to today

What if I told you that that wasn't true for me.

It would explain a lot.

I think the Rescue Leopard is good

Quote from n00b1n8R »

Well we finished the triland cycle with the first Tarkir set. Hopefully 10 years of power creep will get us something even better (how has it been 10 years, there's no way).

Sorry guys I jinxed it. Trilands again.

[[Desendants of the Storm]] replacing Usher with +1/+1 upside.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/comments/1jfn5it/descendents_of_the_storm/

I like Dalkovan Packbeasts quite a bit. Works in both token decks and aristocrats.

Quote from vertigo451 »

I like Dalkovan Packbeasts quite a bit. Works in both token decks and aristocrats.

This caught my eye too. 3 mana 0/4 no ETB is a low floor, but the ceiling is crazy high

I'll likely cut one of the other Savannah Lion variants and play both Usher and [[Desendants of the Storm]] since they're not 1:1 copies. After all, Boast can be activated after blockers are declared, so it can play a bit differently than Descendants in an environment with tricks.

Quote from A_WasherDryer »

I'll likely cut one of the other Savannah Lion variants and play both Usher and [[Desendants of the Storm]] since they're not 1:1 copies. After all, Boast can be activated after blockers are declared, so it can play a bit differently than Descendants in an environment with tricks.

I'm not sure what I want to cut for this yet, but it will definitely make it in.

I initially thought I'd cut Usher for it, but on second thought I might end up cutting Mandibular Kite, Seasoned Warrenguard, Nurturing Pixie, or Recruitment Officer instead.

I like Descendant of Storms more than usher, the option to threaten a +1/+1 counter to trade up with an X/3 seems good in addition to being able to make more bodies.

I really like mobilize for the tokens / aristocrats / go wide aggro theme I'm trying to encourage in my mardu section, it's been pretty challenging to find cards under 4 CMC at uncommon that make meaningful tokens.

Dalkovan Packbeasts seems quite strong since it effectively attacks as a 3/4 with vigilance and giga-trample (it also might be the one card where Cut Down is actually better removal than Ulcerate).

Shock Brigade, AKA Kari Zev, Skyship Raider at home, seems like a slam dunk. Menace + 3 toughness seems like you'll be able to trigger it a lot early game which could be great if you curve into literally any sort of payoff.

Venerated Stormsinger seems ok, we have a million of these guys now, but I like that this one actually gives you some incentive to attack with it.

Desperate Measures seems kinda fun, although I'm worried that it will be one of those cards that's sometimes amazing and sometimes useless.

I think I'm going to jam each of the 2-color omen dragons in my cube. They just seem fantastic.

Seems good, although I am slightly more interested in the red mobilize cards since that is the colour that wants a bunch of small creatures entering. The surreal thing is that a relatively Local Game Store spoiled the card.

Looking at uncommons only for my cube. I'm actually interested in a ton of these cards. Not sure how many I'll actually add to the cube, but lots to think about for sure.

• Dalkovan Packbeasts - low floor but super high ceiling, goes crazy with aristocrats stuff and Rosie Cotton
• Descendant of Storms - probably cutting Skymarcher Aspirant for this. I love the choice it gives you for its own sake, and to synergize with both Orzhov and Selesnya
• Static Snare - I like that this works on offense and defense. I find I hardly ever use Touch the Spirit Realm to blink anything, so I might try this in its place
• Essence Anchor - I see this as part of the Insidious Roots / Defiled Crypt / Dredger's Insight package, letting it exist broadly in the Sultai space. Seems sweet.
• Spectral Demise - Syncopate type counterspells are pretty decent, and this is also conditionally a 1-mana Force Spike, Quench, or Remand some percentage of the time.
• Desperate Measures - Village Rites that also lets your creature trade in combat? This is less reliable, but potentially much more powerful.
• Krumar Initiate - In the past, this would have been a rare for sure. Powerful, but slow. I wonder how good activating for X=0 would be in certain board states.
• Effortless Master - Ok, I know Izzet prefers value to stats, but this is a 4-mana 6/5 vigilance menace. That's huge! Casting this on 5 after a cantrip or removal spell seems fun. Sadly, I just don't think I like it better than my other Izzet cards.
• Kishla Skimmer - Nice if you're bringing Insidious Roots strategies to Sultai.

Dragonstorms

• Teeming Dragonstorm - I am currently running (checks list) exactly 1 dragon (Sprite Dragon), but these dragonstorm cards are tempting me to try adding a few others as a nice package across colors. They all seem just barely subpar on first cast, but fantastic if you can rebuy them even once. Notably, you can also rebuy with Kor Skyfisher and friends
• Roiling Dragonstorm - Chart a Course that always discards, but you can rebuy it. Very cool.
• Corroding Dragonstorm - Is drain 2, surveil 2 worth a card? I don't think so. I'm less excited by this entry in the cycle.
• Breaching Dragonstorm - Why can't it just say Discover 8? That's literally what it does. Seems really clunky at 5 mana.
• Encroaching Dragonstorm - I don't have a ramp deck in my cube, so this seems like a miss. Maybe I just like the white and blue dragonstorms. That might not be a bad thing - just have to enable them with skyfishers and Essence Reliquary instead of dragons.

Stormbrood Dragons

• Twinmaw Stormbrood - These omen dragons all seem sweet, and would go a long way to helping the dragonstorm package. The problem is that my Boros decks really don't want a 6-drop, especially one that's more stabilizing than aggressive. But cards like this might actually encourage more 2.5-color decks that aren't so focused on the guild "archetypes," and I wouldn't mind seeing those pop up
• Whirling Stormbrood - One of the weaker entries in this cycle. The omen isn't great, and the dragon's ability will hardly ever come up, so it's mostly a 4/3 flash flyer for 5. Might be worth including to complete the cycle, but I'd pass otherwise.
• Purging Stormbrood - Both sides are playable, if not exciting. If this were an adventure creature, it would be amazing. I wonder how much worse omen will be.
• Runescale Stormbrood - Probably the most pushed of this cycle. Both halves seem great.
• Disruptive Stormbrood - Roughly as good as Runescale. I love having the omen as a buyout when there isn't a target for your Reclamation Sage dragon

3-Color Cards

• Bone-Cairn Butcher - To start with, there's obviously a huge barrier to running 3-color cards. But assuming you're interested in trying that, this seems like a sweet way to tie together Mardu aristocrats.
• Sonic Shrieker - Why is this ability so close to Skirmish Rhino, but just way better? I get that it's 2 more mana, but it's just weird that they're so similar. Card is obviously powerful.
• Skirmish Rhino - My boy!
• Riverwheel Sweep - Ok, this cycle is actually probably playable. Think of them as costing 2XY in any of 3 different guilds. This particular card is fine, but not great.
• Lie in Wait - Vengeful Rebirth for half the cost. Basically.
• Rakshasa's Bargain - I'm actually really excited about this card. It's pretty close to 4-mana instant speed surveil 4, draw 2. Dimir and Golgari would love this, and even Simic in my cube is a flash deck that would appreciate a way to gas up in the midgame.

This set is pretty sick. Omen is great, Endures is great, Mobilize is great. It's nice to have a real Magic set for a change.

I particularly like Twinmaw Stormbrood. It's nifty.

Sunpearl Kirin is actually nuts.

1W
Creature - Kirin

Flash, Flying

When this enters, return up to one other nonland permanent you control to it's owners hand. If it's a token, draw a card.

2/1

With all of these two-brid three-color cards and off-color Omen Dragons, how would people classify most of them?

For me, these three color hybrids would be classified as probably being a fractional card for each of the three guilds represented. Using Rakshasa’s Bargain as the example would be a part-Dimir, part-Golgari, part-Simic card. I have personally done something similar with cards like Wild Nacatl (half-Gruul and half-Selesnya) and Rise // Fall (half-Dimir and half-Rakdos) in my cube’s past.

The Omen Dragons may look a little unusual to classify, but I believe them to be guild spells entirely. Mostly because I believe you would never put one in a deck without 7+ sources of one color and 2+ sources of the other. I understand half of these cards might be “reasonable” in a mono-color deck, but the whole premise of Cube is finding 25+ spells for your deck that are better than “reasonable.”

I wonder how other people are thinking about these for their cubes, especially around questions of balancing their multicolor sections with these cards.

Quote from Aidoneus »

Sunpearl Kirin is actually nuts.

1W
Creature - Kirin

Flash, Flying

When this enters, return up to one other nonland permanent you control to it's owners hand. If it's a token, draw a card.

2/1

Yeah I love this Kirin! Such an easy swap with my boy Rescuer Chwinga