MTG Salvation

2. On the other hand, the bolt lands are a lot more interesting - I like how a powerful spell (7-8 cost) could also be a land and could significantly help smooth out draws are incentive decks to play more 6-7 drops and present more interesting games. I've found 5-6 mana planeswalkers/ spells to be alot less interesting in eternal formats because of the balance of having enough lands to reach the mana to consistently cast the spells vs not drawing too many lands to not get flooded to be incredibly difficult.

I don't personally think there are any good 6+ mana PW in powered Cube except maybe ramping into Ugin or Karn (or Bolas -- players LOVE building around him lol)

I seriously wonder if the common landfall beater Territorial Scythecat doesn't beat harder than Kazandu Mammoth if you have a bunch of fetchlands.

Quote from rantipole »

Thanks once again for doing these. You do such a great service to the community by writing the Previews.

Very surprised to not see Kargan Intimidator and Sea Gate Stormcaller and surprised to see Hagra Mauling and Roil Eruption on this list. Intimidator looks like a better red 2-drop than a few that are commonly run. Stormcaller has a really high ceiling by pairing it with Recall, Walk, or a Tutor.

Cheers,
rant

You want to know a really dumb card like the Stormcaller?



It was a weird card they gave to him for working on a movie or something but we toyed with it in powered cube and it is super annoying. JGL is definitely better than the Stormcaller but the same dynamic is basically at work. Unlike in Vintage cards like Ancestral don't get countered all the time so they actually get doubled and its stupid.

I think the "tax" is on a curve. Going from 1-2 cmc is a much higher tax than 4-5 IMO (thinking of the Llanowar Elf guy and the Force Spike one).

Also, the weird thing IMO is that some of the low drops could probably be 360-able if you wanted because a number of 1 and 2 drops are more or less interchangeable. But I wouldn't call those cards the top cards of the set.

Quote from ryansaxe »

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.

The modes on Izzet charm are individually subpar because they are each situational. So there is an additive effect having a number of them available on one card. A etb mono-colored tapped land is horrible because it is horrible.

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.

The land bounce on Kazandu Stomper says "up to 2" so I believe you can choose 0 if you want making it a de facto "may" ability

Quote from asmallcat »

Quote from asmallcat »

Edit - and I'm pretty sure you can't put one of these into play with arboreal grazer or sakura-tribe scout, either, but you can play them with oracle of mul daya and courser of kruphix, but you can't play them with coiling oracle (you have to draw them) nor with nissa, steward of elements.

I wanted to put this in its own post cause it's pretty absurd - as written, you can't play these off the top with Courser, but you can with Muly Duly. However, Courser has apparently had an oracle change at some point to just say "lands" instead of "land cards," so you can actually play these with courser, but you'd only know that if you decided to randomly check the oracle text for Courser. If you looked at the rulings on these MDF cards, and the rules themselves for these MDF cars themselves, everything you read would tell you Courser couldn't play these cards.

I always tend to be err on the conservative side (eg I personally think mutate is an overcomplicated mess for little gain over auras) but mdfcs strike me like they could've just been (basic [[type]])cycling: 1 and achieved nearly the same effect. Yes there would be a number of functional differences but without the enormous baggage we get here. Granted it wouldn't have been nearly as splashy and I know they want to limit shuffle effects. But still.

Quote from Fredo »

Quote from LucidVision »

I think it's really easy to underestimate the value of flexibility here, but also really easy to underestimate the cost of a tapped land vs an untapped land.

Agreed - I'm having a really hard time evaluating the MDFCs with ETBT lands as a mode because of precisely this reason. This card could be a miss or a staple and I really don't have a clue which it will be.

Try thinking of the backside as Swampcycling 1

I guess I don't get the point of doing something as elaborate as "modal dual faced card" for what amounts to a variant of [basicland]cycling

The problem I have with a card like this is it doesn't feel stronger than some of the other mono or 2 color 5 CMC variants.

- Dragonlord Ojutai
- Ao, the Dawn Sky
- Thragtusk
- Thundermaw Hellkite

Drawing a card on ETB/ Attack really doesn't feel that worth it.

On the other hand, I feel Maelstrom Wanderer is not really a commander novelty toy, but an important for the ramp archetype. Its haste (attacks into planeswalker), double cascade (plays around counter spells/ potentially sweepers), and overall value (plays around spot removal) has been incredibly important for ramp decks.

Its tri color really hasn't been a problem as I've found 80% of these ramp decks can support the colors anyways with off color talisman, rainbow lands/ dorks.

"rarity:common new:rarity is:reprint" might be what you are looking for

"I really wish this tiny community was smaller"

The joy of a pauper cube, for me, is being able to always come home from a prerelease with cards to add to my cube. Pauper Cube mimics in many ways a limited environment, since common cards usually make up the bulk of one's limited deck. A pauper cube is a place to cheaply construct a representation of your favorite affordable cards to play with through the ages. It's fun to see what old commons make the cut for cube, and what new commons do to change the environment. Pauper Cubes are also quite versatile and allow a great variety of cubes to be shaped around such a simple stipulation. Some people like a powered pauper cube - that's fine. It means you're always trying to find which commons have been pushed *just enough* so that they're always "strictly better" than other cards. Other Pauper cubes are focused around synergies - it's fun to construct archetypes through affordable cards. Some people like Pauper Cubes because they naturally restrict the complexity of the cards involved. It makes playing Magic feel like the old days when cards did less things. Some people like pauper cubes that run thirty Relentless Rats or ten Rune Snags.

At a certain point one has to concede that Pauper Cubes can be *ANYTHING* the builder wants them to be. The one thing we can all agree on, and the only thing we might need to agree on, is that we like playing with Magic cards that are printed at Common.

Quote from SaltMaster 5000 »

I don't understand the point of reaching consensus. If you want to min max everything and play the same few dozen cards as everyone else, why not play constructed?

I get the feeling that none of you guys actually like Pauper, you just can't afford a Vintage cube and don't like looking at proxies. If you want to max out on power just go all the way, why stick with commons?

Even if you don't want to minmax reaching a consensus is pretty useful, as if you're beginning you can either build a maximum power cube by knowing what are the essentials, or build a depowered cube with crap cards by cutting bombs right away. You also get to know what cards are actually useful and which ones look good in paper but have poor execution, because a curated limited environment is important for cube now matter which 360 you run (you don't want to have a full powered black section but everything else with mediocre power level for example).

About the second part, I'm not sure if you're trolling or actually serious. I have a Vintage cube with proxies for the most expensive cards (that actually look good, and can pass as the real thing as long as they're sleeved, so looks are a non-issue) and it's a completely different beast from Pauper, both from gameplay perspective and the actual power of the cards. By that logic, why play a tier 1 deck in any format, because if you wanted power you would go play Shops in Vintage, right?

decrease all ratings by one level and youre good to go