MTG Salvation

While my actual preferences vary from card to card, my overall preferences are old border foil > 93/94 nonfoil (The Dark or earlier) > promotional foil > other new border foil > Ice Age-Urza's Saga nonfoil > newer nonfoil.

There are always exceptions, and they'll vary from one cube designer to another. My favorite Wasteland art is the Zendikar Rising Expeditions art, and the frame is also neat, so I'm planning to pick one of those up instead of tracking down the old-border foil.

Quote from rantipole »

These are good changes if you want to pare down green aggro. If I went up to a 630 card cube, I'd probably reinclude the green aggro cards I just cut.

Cheers,
rant

Green aggro just never really ends up being the primary aggro color. I want to keep the cards in that I'm adding, but it's possible paring down green aggro isn't correct. It's not like I can't undo the swap!

Making a few small changes in green based on thoughts about its role as a secondary aggro color and not a primary one. I'm not sure that this is correct, but for now, I'm axing three one-drops (although one is becoming a different one-drop), plus axing a 5-drop, since I have so many now:

Jungle Lion -> Elvish Reclaimer
Kessig Prowler -> Farseek
Wolfbitten Captive -> Cultivate
Biogenic Ooze -> Sylvan Caryatid

Quote from JinxedIdol »

I think I might be taking out Ral for this, or Dack’s Duplicate (is anyone playing with this still?)

The shock and shatter will probably be the most used but the other half might be useful for Welder/Reanimator shenanigans.

Quite interesting that it is arguably mono red if you still consider faithless looting in color.

I still play Dack's Duplicate! I considered cutting it instead of Fire//Ice, but I like having the haste clone effect, so I'm replacing the more similar effect.

Whew. This is definitely making the cut over Fire//Ice for me as well.

I like all these changes! I think that I like all your lands more than Crawling Barrens. I think I like it more than Powder Keg or Lightning Greaves, but I know I'm more down on Greaves than most are (I don't run it at 630).

That's fair - I don't like how much of a mana sink Student ends up being (while still being in red removal range), so I'm taking the opportunity to cut it now.

I've decided to un-add Valki for now, since I'm not enthusiastic enough about him right now, so have re-added Tormented Hero (instead of just reverting to Heir of Falkenrath).

I've also cut Elvish Piper to add Esika's Chariot.

My ranking for these two is pretty identical. I actually prefer the fetch over the dual but their relative order probably doesn't matter.

Azorius:
1. Flooded Strand
2. Tundra
3. Hallowed Fountain
4. Celestial Colonnade
5. Adarkar Wastes
6. Hengegate Pathway // Mistgate Pathway

Dimir:
1. Polluted Delta
2. Underground Sea
3. Watery Grave
4. Creeping Tar Pit
5. Underground River
6. Clearwater Pathway // Murkwater Pathway

I'm a huge fan of the pathways and of being able to count on the land entering untapped and making the color you need on its own. I think that the seventh land for each of these two for me (which is what I run in addition to the above six) is Irrigated Farmland/Fetid Pools.

First round of Kaldheim changes! I might add more, and this doesn't line up with what I said I'd add in the thread I created in Cube New Card Discussion, but decided to start here for now:

Student of Warfare -> Usher of the Fallen
Leonin Warleader -> Halvar, God of Battle // Sword of the Realms
Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier -> Starnheim Unleashed
Shatter the Sky -> Doomskar

Spellskite -> Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel

Heir of Falkenrath // Heir to the Night -> Valki, God of Lies // Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor

Seachrome Coast -> Hengegate Pathway // Mistgate Pathway
Smoldering Marsh -> Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway
Blooming Marsh -> Darkbore Pathway // Slitherbore Pathway
Botanical Sanctum -> Barkchannel Pathway // Tidechannel Pathway

Thanks for the (p)review, as always!

I always enjoy seeing how your thoughts line up with my initial impressions, and I'll be curious to see how some of the cards I'm more down on end up performing. I'm definitely most excited about the cycle of Pathway lands being completed, and also thrilled that this isn't a crazy packed set like the past few have been. Definitely some cool cards that might sneak into the rotation but that aren't must play cards, which is a place I'm happy to have a set be.

I've cut both Cultivate and Kodama's Reach in favor of Beanstalk Giant. While I haven't had that many events with it, I liked it more - you only get one land, but it coming in untapped can matter, and having the creature as a follow up is worth it in my opinion.

Given that the full spoiler releases tomorrow, I'm kinda surprised this thread hasn't been created yet. I'm curious to see overall what people are considering. My thoughts have cooled on a number of things I was initially looking at, but here's where I've ended up:

White
Student of Warfare -> Usher of the Fallen
Leonin Warleader -> Halvar, God of Battle // Sword of the Realms
Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier -> Starnheim Unleashed
Shatter the Sky -> Doomskar

Blue
Spellskite -> Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel (test)

Black
Heir of Falkenrath // Heir to the Night -> Valki, God of Lies // Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor
Flesh Carver -> Eradicator Valkyrie (unconfident test - I like all my existing 4s more than Valkyrie)

Multicolor
Seachrome Coast -> Hengegate Pathway // Mistgate Pathway
Smoldering Marsh -> Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway
Corpse Knight -> Firja's Punishment (test)
Blooming Marsh -> Darkbore Pathway // Slitherbore Pathway
Botanical Sanctum -> Barkchannel Pathway // Tidechannel Pathway

Colorless:
Spire of Industry -> Shimmerdrift Valley

I was also planning to test Starnheim Unleashed, so it'd be a 50/50 shot, with both foretell cards being in the same color. It gets worse if it's the only one, but I expect Starnheim Unleashed to last at least a fair amount of time.

This definitely seems testable. The only tier-2 wrath effect I run is Shatter the Sky, but I'll definitely try this out over it.