MTG Salvation

Quote from Mangolassi »

Sadly I don't think this card has threat of activation. The transform ability looks triggered, not activated.

Correct. Your opponent will know if it's a 3/3 or 6/6 before they have to block.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I think black offers a lot to the spells matters shell, and Witch has been awesome. Tutors, discard spells, and K Command are sweet in those decks.

Yeah in my experience the deck is always URx, and the x is white or black based on whether I see witch or mentor in the draft. Both W and B offer nice additions to the deck as a tertiary support color or as a full third color if your mana works out.

Quote from hoodwink »

though I'll confess I don't really understand the distinction you're making with Conduit

I believe Wtwlf's point was that you can activate Conduit on your turn and use it, then play instants and creatures with flash on your opponent's turn to sort of get around the "only cast one spell on your turn" restriction of the card.

Wtwlf, as always, thanks for these posts. They are so helpful in compiling buy lists.

Quote from steve_man »

Quote from MrConfusion »

Background: I am looking over the big mana rocks in my colorless section in a 360 Unpowered Cube. I know for sure I am including Grim Monolith and Coalition Relic, but am struggling with choosing the other two from the following list:

Pick Two:

• Everflowing Chalice
  
• Worn Powerstone
  
• Thran Dynamo
  
• Hedron Archive
  

Personally I've cut Thran Dynamo / Hedron Archive a long time ago, so those would be my picks. I'm not a fan of 4-cmc cards that primarily just ramp. 3-cmc is my cutoff for that now.

I think Dynamo is the best of those FWIW as it's the best rate that you can use immediately. It only costs you a single mana if you can run a 2 spell turn. I'd probably run powerstone and dynamo if I had to pick 2 (although I run Dynamo, Archive, and Powestone). I personally hate chalice. Yeah, it scales, but you're never casting it for 6, at 2 there are so many better options and at 4 it's an archive you can never cash in, which is a card I would never play.

I'd rather spend 1 more mana and get the flexibility of the O-ring variants.

Obviously GGG is a completely different animal, but Old-Growth Troll was a complete whiff in my cube and it was a 4/4 trample for 3 with multiple upsides.

It's kind of crazy that this is where we are, but a 2G 4/4 trample would be an average-at-best cube card nowadays.

3 mana 4/4 that can attack with menace on turn 4, and you even have the line of turn 3 make a 4/4, turn 4 disenchant and attack with the menace body? Seems pretty good. I think this is probably testable in any cube that supports gruul aggro.

It's not really mana ramp, the powerstones are so so specific in what you can do with the mana. Think this is an easy pass.

Quote from TheGroglord »

I think I'll try it, though I wish I could use non-blue mana. Would Phyrexian blue have too broken?

Absolutely lol. A 2 generic mana 3/2 unblockable that made you pay 2 life when it ETB'd would be one of the best aggro creatures ever, and this would be a lot better than that. You could have a 5 power unblockable attacker on turn 3 by paying 4 total mana and 4 life over 2 turns.

Ok, so for those, like me, who had no idea how attractions work, once this guy puts one into play:

"At the beginning of your first main phase on each of your turns, you roll to visit your Attractions by rolling a six-sided die. If the result is lit up on an Attraction you control, you visit that Attraction, causing that Attraction's visit ability to trigger. You visit Attractions only for this special die roll or if a card specifically tells you to roll to visit your Attractions. Other die rolls caused by spells and abilities won't cause visit abilities to trigger."

So, you're rolling 1 d6 a turn and 1/6th of the time you get to return this guy to play (plus you get some random benefit from the attraction - I suppose if you're letting people add attractions for free they will just always pick the best 3 to put in their attraction "deck"). I don't think I'd think an etb tapped 2/1 for B that let you roll once a turn to return it to the battlefield for free and you had to hit a 6 would be even close to good enough for modern cube. I'd put it below basically every recursive black 1 and 2-drops that are seeing any cube play, and I think I like it less than some other no-longer-playable 2/1's in black that weren't recurrable but had other upside (the bestow one, for instance). So you're only really playing this because it's an ok aggro creature that gives you a benefit from cards you didn't draft and lets you occasionally spike a lucky roll and get 2 of the attractions in play.

Even if I didn't hate the theme of this set (I do), even if I didn't hate what WOTC did with legality in this set (I do), I have 0 interest in including a card that people will really only draft because it gives them access to cards from outside the drafting process that are good if they roll a certain number on a die at the start of each of their turns. Ugh.

On a side note, everything about the design of this set feels clunky and awful. Stickers? More annoying versions of contraptions/venture into the dungeon? Quadrupling down on caring what people are wearing? Just the easiest pass ever.

Quote from asmallcat »

Quote from Mangolassi »

Tap it immediately, then tap it in response to the upkeep trigger

Don't you just take an extra point of damage for no reason activating the ring in response to the upkeep trigger?

Yeah, the line should be cast it -> tap it whenever before your next turn -> let the upkeep trigger resolve and lose a life -> tap and draw 2.

Yeah that's what I meant my brain was just working backwards there.

Quote from meltingsho »

without any mana value restrictions

"with mana value less than Narset's power"

Quote from asmallcat »

Quote from jamis »

[img]In a hand with no 3-mana play, you can curve 1-drop, 2-drop, into this on turn 3 to dig for up to 2 creatures mana value 2 or less.

You're only digging 2 deep though, which in a deck with 15 1- and 2-drop creatures you're only 60% to hit at least 1.

I think this is pretty bad even in WW and unplayable everywhere else. It's a horrendous post-wrath play, and yeah, it's a cool topdeck or play when I have 4 creatures in play but why aren't I just smashing my opponent in that situation?

It always digs 6. If you have 10 mana value 2 or less, that's 84.5% to hit 1, 47.4% to hit 2. With 15, it's 95.4% to hit 1, 74.6% to hit 2.

Its like magical black jack!

I think its a bit expensive for my cube for having a random payoff, but damn it seems fun. I might try it in turbo cube.

I like the balance of weighting up your average CMC vs your current count, feels a "push your luck" style of game.

Quote from Alan Yuan »

Tinder + Bolas's Citadel

I've found Tinder to be pretty unreliable, although that could just be my local meta.

This feels like Collective Defiance again. The double red, sorcery speed nature of this card really isn't worth it IMO. This is going to be especially tough with so many good 3 CMC red spells competing for a similar card slot.

Despite the relentless power creep, I still advocate for Roast.

Quote from asmallcat »

If we had spell creep the way we got creature creep Time Warp would cost like 2 mana......

I admit defeat.

Quote from Cythare »

I want to test out a number of battles, so I'm definitely here for this. I think it's pretty compelling without them as well, but maybe not quite as much. I'm going to test it out over Hellrider unless Hellrider is updated to also ping battles that are attacked.

Pretty safe to say that Hellrider will ping battles

You're welcome! And you're correct about the Conduit interpretation. If your deck plays exclusively at sorcery speed, you have to decide between casting from hand or off Conduit. If you have lots of options that can be played at instant speed, you can play cards via Conduit on your turn, and from your hand on your opponent's turn, which really undermines the restrictions the card is supposed to impose on you.