MTG Salvation

I find the ranking of Adeline surprising. I recognize the huge upside, but also can't help but wonder how it will look in draws where you stumble early, fall behind on board, or have your first creature bolted. In those situations it will really pale in comparison to rabblemaster. Then again, a lot of that could also be said about hanweir garrison, which I still run.

Overall, the card definitely seems good, but also a farcry from Brimaz, a card I've found to be dependably good in pretty much every scenario.

As well, everyone hopefully understands that the cost of including these cards comes at cutting another card from you Cube not your deck. Cube real estate is hard to break into these days with so many archetypes and generic high powered cards. That means even though each of the MDFC's would be played, does not mean they are auto-includes in a Cube.

This is a good point, but I think I come at it from a different perspective than most people. My experience has been that it isn't hard to pull together 23 non-land cards for a cube deck. Even my weaker drafters who basically just pick random cards in a colour pair tend to end up with at least a semi-coherent pile. This suggests to me that, while cube slots are competitive, there's a lot of cards that are going to waste, sitting in sideboards during games. As a result, cards like this that will never sit in sideboards are super appealing. Basically, I'd rather have cards that I'll include in my land slot 99% of the time, than the 9th best 3 drop in a colour or the 10th best draw spell, which aren't high picks to begin with.

I do agree that this can be taken too far. I don't want to end up in a situation where my drafters are struggling to pull together a solid deck, with an interesting gameplan. That being said, I think we're pretty far from that point. I'm likely going to be testing around 10 of these lands in my 500 card cube and I don't expect there to be any significant issues. I guess I'll find out though!

Yes.

We don't play Quench, but Miscalculation is great. We don't play Naturalize, but Wilt is fantastic. I think adding a tapped land option to a spell is even better than cycling (and by a pretty big margin, too). So ya, it's entirely possible for a card to go from bad to good because you add a flexible option to it. Any options we add on to the card that give us more ways to use them have historically been good. Kicker, cycling ...they all give us more than one thing we can do with our cards. There's no greater gap to leap than land to nonland and vice versa, and these MDFCs are going to be awesome. The land option is likely worth about 1 in terms of the acceptable "tax" that it adds to the non-land side ...that's the equivalent of adding 1-mana cycling that can't miss a land when you need to dig for one. So when I look at the Spell//Tapland combo card, if I would cube the spell if it cost 1 mana less, I'm interested in the MDFC. So in this case, I would play a 2-mana clone. So a 3-mana one with a land stapled to it looks great to me. And they change the keepable range of opening hands they're a part of too. Just amazing designs, really.

I've been keeping out of these discussions up to this point, but was about to weigh in by saying exactly this! Glad to see that we're on the same page

You can use the "1-mana cycling" viewpoint to analyse both sides of the card. Would I play a 3 mana clone with with islandcycling 1 (I'm counting the ETB tapped as the loss of 1 mana)? Would I play a land with that cycles for 1 and always finds a 2 mana clone? Taken together I think the answer is yes.

I've found the discussions on the MDFCs interesting. People seem to be really focused on the idea that cube is an unfair format where you have to be doing something inherently busted to win. My experience is a bit different. I find that my drafters lose as many cube games to flood/screw as anything else. Beyond that, people HATE losing to flood/screw. It's miserable to draft a sweet deck just to have variance get the best of you. These are great because they will help you win games, while also reducing the number of non-games.

Happyjosiah - The issue of needing to play narrow cards is something I’ve struggled with as well. At the same time, I think the 3 cards you mentioned aren’t terrible. Like, they’re certainly not amazing in the average cube deck, but I wouldn’t be embarrassed to run Mimic or Anafenza as a 23rd card in a white weenie deck or run Unicorn as a 23rd in a tokens shell.

I’m also starting to come around a bit more on the idea that it’s alright to run some number of narrow archetype specific pieces. Like, I’m already running a bunch of 1 drops that are terrible outside of aggro + things like Entomb, which is almost unplayable outside of reanimator. Since I’m already doing that, dedicating a few slots to interesting combos doesn’t seem so bad!


Daemion - That’s another interesting combo I’ve never considered! Red might be a little too tight in my list to make room for it, but I’ll definitely keep it in mind.

*Long post incoming. Hopefully you’ll be able to read to the end and then share your thoughts!*
*Mods, there are a couple of posts related to these combos, but they seem to be older and/or not fully relevant. Please feel free to merge, if needed*


Hi everyone,

I’m looking for help in adding a larger combo element to my cube. I know there’s been a lot of discussion on this forum about this subject over the last couple of years, so I’m hoping you can help!

For context, I’ve been building my cube playing casually with friends over the past couple of years. The cube is around legacy power level (cubetutor link is here. Note that it hasn’t been updated with more recent sets). Over time I’ve realised that my play group hates playing against cards they find un-interactive (True-Name Nemesis, Mother of Runes, Recurring Nightmare) or game ending out of nowhere (Eldrazi, Kiki combo). As a result, I’ve cut a lot of combo elements (although things like reanimator and Sneak Attack remain).

A couple of other things I want to mention:

• I’m pretty happy with where Blue and Red are at in my list.
• On the other hand I am not a fan of white… hoping that some combo can spice it up!
• With the recent printing of tutors like Finale of Devastation, Vivien and Fiend Artisan, I’m really excited about the potential for non-blue based combos to be consistent.
• I’m looking to strike a balance between the tension that combo brings to games (i.e., always needing to ask yourself “do they have it”) vs the feel bad moments of being killed out of nowhere when there’s nothing you can do about it.

Anyways, I’m hoping that you can help me answer these questions:

1. In a cube of 450-500 cards, if I include the cards I’ve listed below, will I have the density of pieces needed to make the combos viable? As much as possible I’m trying to avoid putting narrow/‘bad’ cards in.


2. Tied to my first question, are there any playable + redundant effects that I’m missing? Also, are there any other combos I should consider?


3. How do people feel about imbalanced gold/guild sections? The changes that I’m considering would involve adding quite a few Selesnya cards, but I can’t imagine cutting something like Dryad Militant. Typically, when I read threads that ask this kind of question, the answers are “do what feels right for your cube”, but I’m curious about any thoughts beyond this.


4. Do these combos lead to the same kind of feel bad moments as cheating in Eldrazi or pulling off the Kiki combo? I’m hoping that they’ll be better, since for the most part they operate at sorcery speed, involve 3+ pieces, the pieces die to removal and they’re outside blue (which makes them more difficult to back up with counter magic).


5. In addition to the combos I listed below, I’m curious about the intruder alarm combo. In particular, is there any redundancy for intruder alarm or is it a unique effect?

On to the combo’s I’m considering:

1. Persist Combo

Free sacrifice outlets I’m running/considering:

• Woe Strider
• Carrion Feeder
• Goblin Bombardment
• Falkenrath Aristocrat
• Yawgmoth
• Greater Gargadon (sort of)

Other cards seem too weak outside of the combo (e.g., various altars, viscera seer)

Persist Creatures I’m running/considering:

• Redcap
• Finks
• Puppeteer clique
• Putrid Goblin
• Glen Elendra
• Woodfall Primus
• Basri’s lieutenant

Other cards seem too weak outside of the combo (e.g., lesser masticore)

Enablers I’m running/considering:

• Anafenza
• Metallic Mimic
• Luminous Broodmoth
• Good Fortune Unicorn, Rhythm of the Wild, Grumgully and Renata called to the Hunt, Mikeus the Unhallowed (these cards seem okay outside of the combo, but not great. Are they worth running? If so, how many and which?).

Other cards seem too weak outside of the combo (e.g., Melira, Vizier of Remedies).

2. Selesnya ETB Loops

Sacrifice outlets I’m running/considering
(see under persist combo)

Enablers I’m running/considering

• Saffi Eriksdotter
• Karmic Guide
• Reveillark
• Sun Titan
• Renegade Rallier

3. Lifegain Combo

Version 1
Walking Ballista or Triskelion + Heliod (Maybe Mikeus as well for Triskelion, but as I previously mentioned, I’m not sold on the card)

Version 2
Finks or Spike Feeder + Heliod or Archangel of Thune


Thanks for reading. Really looking forward to hearing what you have to say!

Long time lurker. Feel like this is a card I need to jump in on.

I don't think this card is a slam dunk, but I do think it's better than people are giving it credit for.

I find the comparisons to Welk and Desertion to be a bit unfair. The ceiling is obviously lower, but the floor is WAYYY higher since you don't actually need to counter a spell to get the body. Obviously a 5/4 flash with no additional value isn't ideal, but it isn't embarrassing either.

My experience has been that, when playing at instant speed, having multiple options is key. There are few worse feelings than falling behind on board, with a hand where holding up a counter is my best option, only to have my opponent play around it, effectively timewalking me. The beauty of cards like this or something like Mystic Confluence (which is admittedly much more powerful) is that this situation will never happen.

Anyways, I'm planning to test the card and expect it to be decent. The fact that the blue 5 drop creature slot is relatively weak doesn't hurt either!

Edit: For context. 450 cube around Legacy power level, but with some "feel-bad" cards removed (e.g., True-Name Nemesis).

Quote from Marl Karx »

Quote from dschumm »

To me this card is the real teat. A powerful card for a reasonable mana cost, that is situational bad/excellent. But I like it more than the combat trick ones because you get to sculpt a plan with it. They effect is also usually better late, when you dont need land. So if excellent i may try more flip catds

Personally I don't think the upside of the land in the early game is much of an "upside" since etb tapped is so horrible.

You know what is also absolutely horrible? Every single mode on Izzet Charm. In fact, I would rather have an extra colored tapland in my deck over UR: any single mode of Izzet charm. Zero of those individual modes would make a 2000 sized cube. However, the card is fantastic and a lower-sized-izzet-section-staple because it provide full coverage: a set of options such that one is always useful. I view MDFCs in a very similar light.

Quote from bnans_25 »

[quote] My experience has been that it isn't hard to pull together 23 non-land cards for a cube deck.

This is, I think, the crux of the discussion. It's a really different question to ask "would this make my deck?" than "should this make my cube?"

Obviously most decks that play white would rather replace a basic plains with Flagstones of Trokair, but that doesn't mean that card belongs in most cubes.

It adds to the critical mass of available aggro pieces at the table. So if Boros aggro is being drfted, for example, Gruul or Selesnya might be available to another drafter. And supporting green aggro allows Simic tempo to be a thing, and that deck straight doesn't exist without the support. So a handful of cards in the green section unlocks like 5+ decks that players can explore.

But yes, oversized creatures for the mana investment, and value/utility strapped to useful bodies are green's main contributions to the deck. And several of the multicolor cards are good too, like Bloodbraid Elf, Knight of Autumn and Edric, Spymaster of Trest. Rancor and Plow Under are also fantastic support cards that might already be available, that can really shine in green aggro/tempo shells. And Hexdrinker is one of the best 2-power 1-drops available to any color. Questing Beast is an insane aggro curve-topper too. It also unlocks the full potential of creatures like Wild Nacatl and Warden of the First Tree, which are fantastic 1-drops in those decks, obviously.

So, a lot of the tools are already there. Give the deck the aggressive 1-drops that it needs, and it can unlock a bunch of playable decks.

Edit: Oh, and Tarmogoyf is great. It's usually at least a 2/3 by the time it needs to attack. It's usually not the only 2cc play you have available to you, the deck contains spells, lands that die, and other things that get into the 'yard pretty early. The upside of having a 2-mana 4/5 or 5/6 or whatever is high enough to deal with the uncommon occasions where it's: A) your only play, and B) is stuck as an 0/1 or 1/2. It's SUPER rare that both of those scenarios arise at the same time. It usually follows a Thoughtseize, Bolt, fetch, removal spell or whatever, and is a 3/4 with relative reliability.