MTG Salvation

Have you thought about just making a multiplayer cube? It keeps things a lot fresher & more balanced while also allowing people to gravitate to the playstyle they enjoy or to venture into new realms.

We give a free mulligan (that doesn't count against the friendly mulligan) if you reveal a hand w/ only 1 land. We also have an Abundance rule where up to two times a game, before your draw step you can choose land or nonland, pay 2 mana and then reveal from the top of your library until you get the type you chose then put it into your hand.

Most of our guys (even the experienced ones) tend to just flood the board with dudes, no matter how often they get punished for doing it.

Yeah, sadly Pulse Tracker & Vicious Conquistador do nothing in my meta either unless I have a Grave Pact out so they just take the 2. But this deck doesn't really want to be waiting for a 4 cmc enchantment.

Growing Rites definitely isn't garbage because its upside is completely absurd and people don't play nearly enough mass removal in multiplayer.

Growing Rites is the only flip card I will definitely toss in some of my decks (once the price comes down LOL). I have plenty of creature heavy decks, so for me it wouldn't be a build around & thus in the worst case scenario I waste a couple extra mana for something that replaces itself with a card I want to be casting ASAP anyway.

I feel like Vanquisher's Banner is worth including. It's not Kindred Discovery (but 2U isn't always easy), but it seems auto include in any casual EDH tribal & something you'd at least strongly consider in red and/or white tribal. I don't like that it's cast, but at it's worst it's a tougher to remove overcosted lord. Given that tribal decks tend to play reasonably costed creatures, it'll draw you 2 cards a turn sometimes. I think it's an improvement over Mentor of the Meek (he always dies on me) or Outpost Siege (not a big fan of cards that make me misplay now or never) in a lot of those decks.

For what it's worth we're basically arguing the same thing but we're presenting our arguments in different ways. Neither of us think that the card is top-tier (I didn't give it an A or anything) but we can both agree that it can enable game-winning sequences.

Fair enough. I feel like if someone posted a deck list on here you'd wisely advise them to just play 4 Fellwar Stone or Sakura-Tribe Elder instead, and thankfully that's like a buck for a playset. I love how you are always budget minded in your suggestions.

Still, for people who can't afford them, can't find them, want to play Modern, want to weaker their decks, etc. having access to budget-minded alternatives always helps.

I'd rather see Unclaimed Territory in the top 10 for a budget option. Obviously it's not the ridiculously priced Cavern of Souls, but almost every multicolored tribal deck will want them, and as you've already posted it's good enough to make you consider splashing another color. To me that's probably the card I'm most excited about because I'm not getting a playset of Cavern anytime soon...

So glad you wrote another set review. They're my favorite thing that gets posted on these boards & I've gone back to the ones you've written many times.
The one card I disagree on here is Dowsing Dagger. It's playable as filler in EDH is you have a deck where you're currently playing Sword of the Animist, but it just seems like way too many hoops to jump through outside of a deck where you are equipping for free, but even then you'd just play Sword of Feast and Famine, or want to give your opponents creatures. In the generic scenario, you probably aren't playing a 1 drop creature, so you probably aren't doing much of anything relevant until turn 5 if your plan is turn 2 creature, turn 3 dagger, turn 4 equip and if you're lucky enough that someone hasn't cast a simple Innocent Blood or whatever by then & your creature won't just be chumped or killed by the person you are attacking maybe cast a 3 or less drop. Sure in the best case scenario you can slam Sylvan Primordial or whatever on turn 5, but you were already doing that more efficiently. It just seems way easier to actually just play Thran Dynamo or Gilded Lotus, especially since if you draw them late at least they just immediately do what they do, and how many 60 card decks do you actually play them in given you want to be ramping turn 1 or 2 rather than turn 4 or 5 (unless we're talking about Hour of Promise or Primeval Titan game winning ramp on turn 4 or 5)?

I wound up playing Reyhan, Last of the Abzan instead of Winding Constrictor. The creatures blow up a little slower, but it improved the chances of the counters staying on something long enough so I could win with them. As long as I can keep something on the board, sooner or later either Rishkar's Expertise into Chandra's Ignition or sacrificing to Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is gg. Essence Harvest obviously isn't perfect for multiplayer, but gaining 10 or more life over the course of a game seems to make a lot more difference in my meta than it sounds, so it's kind of a kill one player & buy yourself enough time to deal with the others. I will probably try switching to Hammer of Nazahn when I get around to getting more.

I'm pretty sure there's going to be a pretty horrible Simic deck somewhere in my future that features Herald of Secret Streams, Master Biomancer and Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Smile

Yeah, I was thinking of finally building something around Chasm Skulker & Prime Speaker Zegana because Prime Speaker is such a cool card but I seem to never really use it outside of EDH. I already have a deck with Managorger Hydra, Taurean Mauler, etc. that is most fun when you can win by sacrificing one to Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, so I'm not sure what I'd do to really differentiate this one.

I feel like having almost everything at the same cmc is the safe option. The issue is that if it's below 6 you can't get the other sunbirds, but maybe 1 is enough or if you're playing 4 cmc stuff you play 4 Clever Impersonator to copy it unless there's a better option?

Panharmonicon for Fortuitous Find

I also love that it doesn't care about what type of spell you are casting. The other thing I love is that you get multiple options if you aren't just casting a bunch of one mana Lightning Bolt or something. I mean, I really enjoy playing Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, but the problem with the deckbuilding is you kind of need every card to be useful virtually all the time (or at least if your commander has done his job) if you don't want to miss your cascade triggers. So then you wind up being stuck hoping you get to In Garruk's Wake rather than just playing Damnation because if Yidris is out chances are you don't want to blow up the board. I hadn't thought about the alternative costs stuff. All those split cards & Vial Smasher the Fierce favorites like Treasure Cruise would let you cast pretty much anything you wanted.

That's an interesting possibility. I think there are a lot, that's why I like the card. I'm not big on planeswalkers in multiplayer because you get 1 use & that's it, but anything that repeatedly casts or put stuff on the battlefield for free is exactly my idea of fun. I haven't had good luck with my Dragonstorm deck that's very ritual heavy, I can't seem to get the combination right with any consistency & wind up w/ a hand of mana & no payoffs or a hand of fatties & Dragonstorms but no way to get them out, but someone else played one against me & it went off insanely, so I'm sure it's just me or something I'm not doing right there. If I were building a multiplayer Sunbird deck it would be t1 Burgeoning, t2 Wheel of Fortune or Windfall depending on how many colors I was in, t3 Sunbird's Invocation, t4 onward hopefully double up on whatever the deck is actually supposed to be doing, so I'd just be using it for a value engine like Lurking Predators or Mind's Dilation. There are undoubtedly a lot more devastating uses for it though, especially if you are doing top deck manipulation & playing w/ infinite combos (which are banned in our playgroup).
I think the issue is how do you keep the card from then whiffing? It's tougher than cascade because cascade always gives you something even if you cast a huge spell & just wind up with a mana rock or some cheap removal. It kind of seems like you want to have a bunch of spells of the same cmc so say virtually everything else is 6cmc (or whatever) then you always go out 6 cards & you either get one of your setup cards or one of your whatever the deck is doing cards (at that price it's probably a good stuff deck though). The problem is at 6 cmc the deck becomes somewhat glass cannonish in that if your 1st few turns don't work out right then you're done for, but it's just for fun so whatever.

I'm really intrigued by Sunbird's Invocation because it could be super powerful if built well, but it's also not obvious what the deck should be (at least to me) like much of the rest of the set (just gather the tribe together & there you have it). Might not be Lurking Predators, but it gives you flexibility to actually play something other than creatures.

If Gonti & Filigree are your crewers you need to stick to crew 2 or less vehicles