MTG Salvation

What did all of the 2020 Secret Lairs have in common? They were all timely with known volatility in their later demand (the Theros gods will probably fade from our collective memories within a year, next year is the Year of the Ox). I predict most of the upcoming Secret Lairs will likewise have themes that are timely at the time they are released but be significantly less appropriate in future years...unlike the 2019 Secret Lairs for the most part (especially the wackier Serum Visions Secret Lair).

4c No White Death's Shadow has been doing fairly well on MTGO lately, and it even picked up Oko, Thief of Crowns back when he wasn't banned. The red splash is basically for Temur Battle Rage only, though. These lists tend to have some (but fewer than 4) Once Upon a Time and maybe some Drown in the Loch to go along with Stubborn Denial.

Apparently, you're supposed to be able to shuffle 2 half-decks together and have them be playable but probably not overpowered. That would explain the Timmy and Johnny cards getting reprinted but not the Spike card.

Quote from Mishotem »

Quote from MauroMorn »

Is the flavor text a clue?

It may be related to the first ability:
Likes: augmentation (augment) fluffy animals (enchant? this one doesn't seem to fit) creative templating (mutate)

Sorry if this is nonsense, but it could mean cards with mutate have a different templating. Something that reflects the ability.
I know of the theory that Ikoria uses keyword counters, but, as any other set, mutate is not its only mechanic, the keyword counters and mutate are not necessarily related.

The creative templating is probably referencing the fact that the card has a future keyword/ability on it.

Nah, I fairly strongly believe that the mention of creative templating is a reference to how we can probably get away with saying that Surgeon General Commander is a 5-colour commander despite having text that can be easily substituted with "Add one mana of any color."

Found the Magic.gg page promoting this at https://magic.gg/news/a-crucible-of-worlds-awaits-with-world-championship-xxvi. That's definitely an upside-down volcano...isn't it?

Quote from Thetwiddleguy »

Quote from JLambe13 »

well they are pretty inexpensive right now if the card takes off. I can really see this broken in a legacy or vintage format.

Not gonna lie I think it’s probably gonna be ban worthy in multiple formats

Graveyard hate is common and vicious in Modern and beyond. I wouldn't be surprised if Underworld Breach is restricted in Vintage but remains unbanned in all other formats. Some of my Breach decks can withstand one one-time graveyard wipe (I'm not sure this is one of them), but Scavenging Ooze has often demanded removal in my Grinding Station-abusing Breach lists. Breach also hasn't provided any speed boosts to my existing decks so far. Legacy has enough Turns 1-2 spell-based combo decks that I'm fairly sure it can withstand some more with Breach's release.

Quote from seilaoque »

Escape is simply too expensive of a mechanic.
you need 4, 5, 6 cards in your grave for every escape... you can't really have that many up to use Escape as a toolbox.

Escape is a great mechanic, but I guess you'll be running a couple escape cards and that's all really.
if you want to build your strat around escape, it will probably be to escape the same card over and over, not to escape a ton of different stuff.

After playing a bunch of Modern decks that aim to Escape cards at least twice per game, I have to agree with this...to a certain extent.

Pretty much my only Underworld Breach deck that doesn't involve preferentially Escaping one card over all others is my Jeskai Ascendancy deck. All the others eventually involve me spamming one particular free card (Mox Amber so I can feed it to Grinding Station, Ideas Unbound with Psychic Puppetry Spliced onto it so I can untap Lotus Field). Jeskai Ascendancy just turns all my cantrips into free cards with the help of mana dorks.

I'm also stuck figuring that I can't afford to toolbox my fairer Escape cards. My Bant Midrange-Control and Scapeshift decks can basically support only 1-2 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. I'm not sure my Modern 5c Niv-Mizzet Reborn deck can support both Uro and Polukranos, Unchained. From testing with Uro, he (and other Escape cards) is quite resilient (Uro feels like cheaper Wurmcoil Engine that draws cards), but that resiliency depends on me being able to Escape them twice or more per grindy game.

Quote from JLambe13 »

I was wonder if anyone has tried out the new card Ox of Agonas? I know the exile 8 cards is alot but I feel like it could be power and a big creature.

I haven't tried Ox of Agonas yet, but my experience with Haunted Dead is that I often used its discard ability because I wasn't hitting 8 cards in my graveyard fast enough. I believe Ox of Agonas will be deceptively bad in Dredge for this reason.

I can totally imagine Ashiok as an ignorant Phyrexian fanboy/girl/person. Ashiok will think they're supporting Phyrexian aims, while we know from previous experience that Phyrexia will be fairly prone to screwing Ashiok over.

Quote from Singe »

In concept, Escape is pretty similar to Delve in graveyard resource use. So the style of deck would be similar to how one plays Delve.

Underworld Breach abuse decks play significantly closer in style to Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis-Altar of Dementia decks than typical Delve cards (e.g. Gurmag Angler, Logic Knot, even Treasure Cruise)--they aim to spam spells from the graveyard in one devastating turn, so they play cards that enable that plan instead of merely self-mill once or add themselves to the graveyard.

From my initial testing, regular Escape cards like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath feel more like typical Delve cards, complete with the amount of support required to use them decently (although sheesh does Uro feel like 4-mana Wurmcoil Engine that draws cards and can do something at 3 mana, and that's in Modern). Escape cards do have the blanket benefit of being castable when self-milled, though, so Dredge decks just might want them.

Nothing in the last round of spoilers sticks out, but I may as well talk about a few last cards:

Kunoros, Hound of Athreos is a neato hate bear/creature. Nice Lifelink, some evasion, has Vigilance, hoses Flashback/the Dredge deck/Vengevine decks/etc....of course, being a 3-drop means it could very well come down too late to hose anything in practice.

Tried Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath in both my old UGr Scapeshift Fast Combo deck and the newfangled Bant Snowko Midrange-Control deck going around. He was predictably quite good in Scapeshift (although, chances are, I can only Escape him once before comboing off), and he was deceptively good in Bant Midrange-Control (enough instants, fetchlands, and fragile planeswalkers and creatures to support his Escape, cost is comparable to Jace TMS or lower). Against Jund, I got to Escape him three times in one game and run them over with CA. Beware of Path to Exile, though (especially since it restricts him to one trigger), and man does opposing Teferi, Time Raveler mess with his head.

Shame Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger does not compare well to the black Delve creatures, though. I'm doubtful the special discard is good enough, especially at 2 mana.

Huh, they officially previewed the Reflection token before Aliris.

Does she actually verbally declare that Shadowspear is the real Khrusor, or does she just swing it and it speaks for itself?

I suppose the only thing this guy will really hose is the infinite part of the Saheeli Rai-Felidar Guardian combo.

We found our next no-library alt win con! It's Thassa's Oracle--its win trigger is on ETB, and as long as you have no library, you still win even if she gets removed in response!