MTG Salvation

Search for Azcanta has been seeing a lot of play over the past few drafts. It's done pretty well in most blue shells as a card filter engine / graveyard fueler. The enchantment side feels like Sensei's Divining Top. Doesn't dig as deep, but not investing mana into it every turn and being able to fuel the graveyard are huge upsides. Not relying on shuffles is also really nice too.

The card has definitely surpassed my expectations. My trial period for it is over, it's here to stay for a while. I don't think it will last forever, but there's definitely at least 3 other blue cards closer to the chopping block than Search for Azcanta is.

I think it was very easy to underrate this card because it’s so subtle. It’s easy to judge a card that immediately affects the board, but the value in SoA is so incramental that I was still having a little difficulty evaluating it even after giving it a few reps.

Quote from rantipole »

Strong enough for a 450 powered cube? I have trouble seeing a cut, give that I also have to find a cut for Chart a Course.

Cheers,
rant

Looking at your blue section, I think Stratus Dancer is the most cuttable card for Chart a Course. Search for Azcanta might be able to edge out Waterfront Bouncer, but not sure how I feel about that yet.

Did a draft just now and was able to pick up Search for Azcanta on the wheel. I really wanted to see how it'd work in a control shell with minimal graveyard synergy and it was probably my MVP of the deck. The only graveyard interaction I had was with Lingering Souls / Deep Analysis / Torrential Gearhulk, but it was just super strong as a card filter in general.

One thing I learned is that there's a lot of value in not transforming it if you don't need to. I already had lines of plays plotted out for the next two turns and I didn't need another land just then. Being able to get more value via filtering was really clutch then.

Here's my Esper Control deck I just drafted in case anyone was wondering:

I’ve been trying to shove Search for Azcanta is every blue archetype I can. It’s not alwaya correct, but it never hurts.

4-Color URBW Balance Upheaval Wildfire Ramp


I was skeptical about running SoA here since I had zero graveyard synergies. Card filtering is always strong, but the Rampant Growth effect was very useful in a ramp deck like this, especially post-Wildfire. I only had one creature in the deck so the Impulse effect was very powerful, it definitely won me a game when I had to dig for Wildfire.

UG Eternal Recall Upheaval Survival


I had all the Regrowth effects to abuse Ancestral Recall as much as possible, so Search for Azcanta could have definitely done some work. It didn’t make the maindeck though since I already had Ancestral Recall / Oath of Nissa / Sylvan Library / Survival of the Fittest / Fauna Shaman / UG Nissa, so card draw / selection wasn’t a problem. Dig Through Time didn’t make the cut either since I only had 2 non-permanents in the deck which makes it hard to fuel delve.

I cut it probably a year ago or so? It still can do work, but it's pretty slow. Hard to keep up with the power creep within the past 2 years. The grindier your cube, the better this is. I'd still play it if my cube was a hair slower and supported less combos.