MTG Salvation

In most decks, discarding a card is a pretty heavy cost to pay for a card that doesn't actually answer the PW right away, unless you've also got enough extra mana to spare. This is useful to pick off PWs whose primary mode of operation is to start out with a - ability and then build back up (looking at you, T3feri), but it's not as good against general incremental advantage PWs. Expecting to get to play it and have it stick around through all the other cards a cube deck will have to deal with it, and then knowing that it may need to consume most or all of your mana the following turn, is a pretty poor proposition. Note that it also doesn't have protection from the tokens that so many PWs can poop out to defend themselves. The activated indestructibility helps, but again, that can consume your mana for a turn and will likely not be available immediately after you play this.

I do like that it provides a colorless option, but for discarding a card, I would have liked to see it just eat a PW on ETB.

This looks like a pretty easy include. Not sure which removal card it's going to push out for me... Doom Blade, Murderous Cut, Chainer's Edict... could see any of them going.

One day every cube card will have five different modes on it and we'll all have poor eyesight from squinting to read all the text.

I'll play this guy.

Quote from TheGroglord »

As I was reading this card I just kept assuming the next block of text was going to be the drawback, then I re-read it assuming I had misread something,but no, its all upside.

Card seems pretty nuts, almost doesnt feel like a real card though; none of the abilities feel connected and they dont even all feel 100% green. That being said its a slam dunk into cube for me.

Somewhere Erithizon is looking forward in time at this card and just crying quietly.

Quote from BlackWaltz3 »

Sorry....the person who posted the original post in the rumor mill got it wrong and I copy/pasted for expediency....yes, the spell is instant speed which is why I referenced hero's downfall.

Note to self: Slow down posting the spoilers....lol. Keep making critical typos!

Well then in that case, SOLD.

"All right R&D interns, it's that time again. Here we have a 2GG 4/4 called... uhhhh... what's this set again? Fairy tales? Called 'Questing Beast'. Now reach into the bowl of abilities and start throwing them onto the card until we run out of space or we get it to... ugh, all the way to mythic. I'm gonna go get another scotch, tell me where it ended up tomorrow."

I feel like maybe people are discounting the adventure side of this card a little too. Yeah, it's just a 1/1, but you only spent G on it; it didn't even cost you a card, not really. It's an Elvish Visionary for half price that always draws you a 2G 5/5.

This card probably still doesn't quite get there but I don't think the floor is really that low. It's just another illustration of how hard it is to break into a cube these days.

If you are heavy on a blink archetype, this might be an include. Getting to cheat your relevant permanents into play and then flicker them into their true forms is powerful. Otherwise it's got the Vivien's Arkbow syndrome: you just spent a card on getting speculative value out of all your cards, which is fine in most Limited formats, but you're ALSO playing the best Magic cards ever. You usually want to just play them! That's why they're in the cube!

There is a great card in here, about two mana cheaper.

Quote from noshadowkick »

Oh geez, what the heck?!

EDIT: Over the initial shock of those stats. For three mana those stats are pretty spicy. Zero evasion is a problem, but it might be a problem I'm willing to swallow for a turn three 7/6. The WCS with this card is they have an infinite string of tokens and you get stonewalled and lose your hand. But you can sideboard this out in token match ups.

There's also the WCS of them letting you discard on your upkeep and then removing this for a 2-for-1. But the list of removal cards that do that at instant speed, even in cube, is pretty narrow. And the discard is often an upside if you're doing it just once.

Quote from asmallcat »

I think braids has a huge drop-off between powered and unpowered.

Not to derail the thread here, but this is an argument that I have a hard time getting behind. This seems to be a common misconception about how powered cubes play out that, after about 10 years of playing with power in my cube, I just see to be completely false. Powered cubes don't automatically start with one player immediately on turn two and four drops don't always come out on turn three. In the case of Braids, I'd even argue that playing her on turn three isn't even going to always be the correct play. Don't get me wrong. If you can chain fast mana into a recursive threat into an early Braids, that's great and might even win the game, but I don't think that line of play should have any bearing on how Braids is evaluated as a card. Not every game is going to chain Bloodsoaked Champion into Bitterblossom into Ophiomancer into Braids. On average, even in my powered list, I'd guess that she's probably a two or three for one before she's dealt with, which is why she ends up getting ranked so highly for most cubers. I just don't think including fast mana (or not) has anything to do with that average.

Quote from Captain_Gerbil SAE »

Quote from bondafong »

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I don't write articles for non-Standard sets.

Buuhhh! This is the best set since Zendikar. I need your review.

Seconded. COME ON WTWLF123!

Why don’t you do MH1 instead of M20? The latter is not even a quarter as interesting

Card is bad IMO.

Triple CC in the cost. No haste for itself unless you have 3RRRR. No relevant combat abilities. Late game rummaging is often unimpactful since usually red is low on cards in the late game by design. Death trigger only works in a specific type of build and I'm not sure that build wants this. Also Red's five drops are pretty stellar right now, this doesn't touch any of them.

If this is the flagship card of the set, this speaks to a lower power level and a rest from the damage MH is doing to my bank account.

If this plays like a worse, white Cyclonic Rift, I'll still take it any day over Declaration.

In my 480 card cube, it hits 94 other targets, or about 1/5 of all cards. Given that most decks play both, and some heavily feature either, this sword will probably connect in quite a few situations. I think it will be a pretty strong card.

card was insane for me tonight winning 3 out of my 4 games by itself.

if the opponent doesnt have double removal in hand, this thing closes out the game so fast its almost a guaranteed win.

loved it. will be in the cube for a while!

Came here for comments on Legion Warboss. Got convinced to add Najeela, thanks!

I don't think this is insanely pushed.

My cube is pretty fast, and no, I have not found this to be the case at all. Every manlands gets activated all the time, and they're all quite strong.