MTG Salvation

Oh yea, Tireless Tracker is great for us in like everything, even Mono green ramp. I’d vouch the house on it, the card sees play all the way to legacy for good reason. Meanwhile Courser of Kruphix obviously isn’t an aggro card, but the card draw aspect of it makes it pretty good in aggro decks too if you want your aggro 3 drops to be as versatile as possible. I haven’t been able to play the new set yet, but Mammoth seems pretty good and I’m guessing Tracker is probably a bit better than that For comparison.

Beyond that, if this discussion also involves versatile multicolored green 3 drops as well, Kitchen Finks is fantastic in everything too (Although I’m sure that’s no surprise). A great 3cmc Gruul card for us has been Klothys, God of Destiny which has been nothing short of spectacular and has probably become our second favorite Gruul card, and when ramped out on turn 2 still triggers nearly every time.


Cards like Beast Within and Song of the Dryads aren’t necessarily aggro cards but they still seem to always make their way into every green maindeck anyways (aggro included) for their versatility, so if you don’t play those they’re definitely a great choice to consider at the green 3cmc slot.


We only play like 5 mono-green 3s in total (6 when Xmage finally uploads the new set for Bala Ged Recovery), so I’d also be interested in hearing what good green 3s people are playing

Obviously its still a land, but I think you want the ping side to be useful in most of your matchups. In standard, every single deck plays either 1 health creatures or Uro, and oftentimes both, so the ping half is a big deal in every single matchup you play. This will always make your maindeck in cube, but im more wondering if this will get sideboarded out so often that it doesn't feel like it's worth a pick.

Like in control and artifact ramp matchups, Arc Lightning can still kill planeswalkers and even go face for lethal, but I'm worried that as a tapland in cube, spikefield might not have enough matchups where it's good to the extent that it ends up not being worth a slot? I hope that question makes sense, I'm not totally sure how to phrase it. Pinging mana dorks and aggro 1/2-drops and deranged hermits is great value for a land, but does it ever stay in your maindeck after game 1 in enough matchups?

Spikefield Hazard is currently tied for the third highest playrate card from this set in standard, but with the banning of Uro that playrate will likely drop. With that said I haven't had the opportunity to play this set at all due to Xmage not updating yet, and me and my playgroup were considering trying it over Flames of the Firebrand/Arc Lightning.

Has anybody who has played extensively with the card let me know how good it has been for them? It's clearly great, but is it more of a tech card or does it tend to be very easy to find ping targets? Cube definitely has more good 1 health targets than standard and pioneer but Uro is obviously a much smaller deal here, so how well does it likely translate over?

Quote from asmallcat »

I'm just jealous you're getting to cube! I hate cockatrice and don't live with any of my cube group so it's been a long time since I actually got to play

I know Xmage is a pain in the ass to download, but it’s so much better than the alternatives, and I’d recommend giving that a shot if you haven’t already. Me and the people I cube with all downloaded xmage like 3 or 4 months ago and it’s been absolutely worth it.

Eh we cut him years ago. He's just kinda slow, but he's certainly more than playable up until like 450. As much as I hate to say it I don't think he makes the cut at 360, powered or not. He's one of those cards that's just really middling, and struggles to find a consistent home. We play both of the green hermits (Deep Forest Hermit and Deranged Hermit) alongside Angel of Invention and Pia and Kiran Nalaar, as army-in-a-can style creatures tend to be really good, but siege-gang specifically happens to be in a color that wants its top end to either be able to survive Wildfires or be playable in RDW, and preferably both, meanwhile this card provides neither. Hermits and Angel are fantastic and are absolutely top of the heap cube cards, but siege-gang specifically struggles to find a home because of its color and cmc.

Quote from Marl Karx »

1. How many modal taplands with discard abilities see cube play again?

The cycling dual lands from Amonkhet and the new Triomes are quite good, and more notably the mono-color Onslaught lands were quite good in our peasant cube back when we still played that, and these new flip cards are leagues better than those. So what is that, like 13 cubeable tap-lands that discard for value? Sounds like a precedent for success if I've ever heard one.

Quote from JuiceBOX »

I don’t think the power level of these is something that makes searching for a land by caveat, impressive. Cute, but not impressive.

I fully expect people to recant their praise for these cards to some extent, but if instead they double down - then good on them I guess.

These are all, a pretty easy pass for me. None of them have enough power for me to consider the marginal gains as anything more than slight deck building boons that offer virtually no statistical leverage.

With all due respect, not only do I completely disagree, but it sounds like you just stuck a bunch of words together in an attempt to make your reasoning sound more solid. I know contextually what you're trying to say, but I guarantee you those words don't mean what you think they mean in that particular order lol

In response to what I think you're trying to say, modal tap-lands with "discard from hand" abilities have been printed before and seen constructed play, so I'm not exactly sure what you're going on about. On the even more extreme end, I remember Recollect saw standard play back in Kamigawa, meanwhile we just got a version that can be played as a tapped forest in the early game which is clearly a huge spike in powerlevel. Overstatted green 3 drops have seen plenty of standard play (not to mention pioneer play) over the last several years, and they just printed one that can be played as a tap-land, is sometimes a 7/7, and only costs double green. I won't even mention the lands that have win cons strapped on that don't even enter tapped, since I really don't know how anybody could object to those.

These cards are at least decent, and whether or not you (or anybody else for that matter) want to play them or not is solely up to your playgroup, but you don't need to come into these threads and try talking down on other people who just want to test a modal clone effect or grab a land off a Fauna Shaman. jeez

Me and my group are going to try this. It's not a reanimtor card, its an aggro and midrange card that offers some late game gas on an already aggressive 2 drop, and in reanimator and midrange decks offers a way to tutor for a reanimation spell off of a Fauna Shaman/Survival of the Fittest/Worldly Tutor/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed or recurred with Liliana, the Last Hope, which is very exciting as the next best card in that vein is Phyrexian Delver, which sorta blows and can't be tempo-ed out early for beats or to carry equipment or to pressure planeswalkers.

We don't even play Erratic Portal/Crystal Shard/Equilibrium, but for those that do, this seems even better.

I'd gladly play this in B/x aggro/midrange decks for some lategame gas, UB control to get back like a Venser, Shaper Savant and True-name Nemesis, and even reanimator just to get back like a mana dork and a fauna shaman, or maybe a looter and a Rotting Regisaur. Probably in the middle of the pack for the new lands, but still servicable enough to test. We play Castle Locthwain which is probably better, but both seem good enough to play. Love these flip lands

I disagree. Karakas is incredibly strong, and as far as I'm concerned it's the third best mono-colored land (Behind Gaea's Cradle and Tolarian Academy), but that doesn't take away from this card's powerlevel.

They are completely different cards, and I don't think it's an apt comparison at all. One is a land that generates value after you play it, the other is a land that generates value if you don't play it. They are not functionally similar in the slightest bit besides the fact that they can both make mana. The closest comparison is probably Rolling Thunder, a card that is incredibly powerful in pauper/peasant/limited, but struggles outside of those formats due to the fact that it does nothing before turn 4 or 5. As it turns out though, this card does do something powerful before turn 4 or 5, meaning there is a precedent for this card to be good, and it doesn't involve comparing itself to other lands that are functionally completely different.

Yea, but you got to play a 4 mana Shock or a 5 mana Arc Trail or hey even a bigger and better 8 mana+ Volcanic Salvo instead of a land. This is an effect that wins games, and you got access to it strapped onto a land. Sounds like a good deal to me. plenty of games come down to simply not having a removal spell regardless of the cost, and this solves that problem in a way that also translates very well into not having a dead draw early. You can play it as some extra gas late in the game for aggro and midrange decks, as another board clear in artifact ramp decks, or as a way for control decks to answer pesky PWs in the mid to late late game. All at the cost of a potential 3 life. Seems more than good enough for me

It should be mentioned that if you play this on turn 1, you can attack before you play your land on turn 2, so it’s essentially a 4 damage turn one shard volley with some extra late game shenanigans. Still not a fan, but this is certainly better than it looks. Probably more of a turn 3 card, sorta like Skyfisher in that you’ll play it the turn after you play your last land, but I still don’t think it gets there unfortunately. The haste+trample combination does make this super good with equipments and swords though...

That's how I feel about it too. We cut Regrowth a while ago, but this card looks quite a bit better imo

Winds has been so good for me personally, I can’t imagine cutting that either. I think I like it more that most white 4s/5s tbh, that’s almost always what I end up cutting from since there’s just so many already. I’m not sure how many white cards we’re adding, but of the cards we’d be cutting from would probably be Student of Warfare, Glory-Bound Initiate, Recruiter of the Guard, and Restoration Angel, and of those the initiate and the recruiter are probably the cuts, even though Student sees by far the least play.

They did it, they actually did it. I just assumed they were going to make the green one like 10 mana, but this is completely castable.

Green Midrange decks tend to get to 7 mana pretty easily and like to play some creatures 5cmc and larger that you’ll be able to grab (not to say that grabbing a buffed up Kitchen Finks or Tireless Tracker is bad because that’s obviously great too), green ramp decks can grab Craterhoof Behemoths and Primeval Titans, G/B/x reanimator decks can play this to ensure some late game payoff if their plans fall through, Sneak Attack and Oath of Druids decks can grab Eldrazi... god this is so damn good. Even aggro decks in green can flood out sometimes and cast this with their mana dorks, I’m honestly in disbelief.

Probably the best card is the set for me so far, just ahead of the red one and the blue artifact thief. This set is actually just completely insane