MTG Salvation

I'm rezzing this thread to ask about Shrine of loyal legions. I've had this card in my cube for token support since Scars block. I've moderately happy with the card, but others have stated that they'd rather just pay 5 mana on turn 5 for a card like Increasing devotion or Conqueroring Pledge (exluding creatures that ETB tokens). I personally like shrine a lot. It's a set it and forget it threat, kind of like suspend in my mind (tho obviously destroyable). The psychological threat of impending token doom is great. If you can force their board wipe, this guy can be popped EOT and swing right away unimpeded. I don't think this card should be considered an on curve type of token-maker, although you want to cast it on curve. So, I suppose the question is do you want an on-curve token maker later?

Sacred Mesa has always been a powerful tool for control, and I've been contemplating returning it. It's a great mana sink after keeping up instant spell mana and basically has an upkeep of 1. When you decide to change roles to the aggressor, the flying tokens quickly get out of hand. At worst, it's 2 mana to chump block.

I still run Sacred Mesa as a pet card, but it only ever seems to see play when a player also has Mirari's Wake in his or her deck. Of course in that situation it is nothing short of busted, but most of the time the requirement to sac a Pegasus each turn makes it rather expensive for what you get.

Doomed Traveler is a fine card too, especially great because tokens decks could use some low end.

Outburst isn't bad, but I wouldn't run the others.

Tokens strategies in cube seems to orient themself more and more around Purphorous, God of the Forge. Anthems are sweet and help a lot multiply damage output, but blowing out your opponent in 1-2 turns with massive tokens production is wonderful and uncomparable.

Around my playgroup, people that have less experience used to complaint about the red god at first and claim for a quick cut, but it's just that they only saw it as a creature and thought that activate it was actually to only way the make it good, while in fact this is absolutly false. I don't even consider that dude as a creature and rank it, like most experienced cubers, as a none-creature spell.

I've cut back on a few of the straight token producing cards simply because the archetype doesn't need that much help being good in my meta. The most dominant deck around tokens involves sacrifice effects and is some flavor of RBW involving a combination of Goblin Bombardment, Blood Artist, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Falkenrath Aristocrat and the newest entry outpost siege (which has been nothing short of amazing in this archetype). Jinxed Idol has also been a lot of fun with this too. This deck wrecks face and simply doesn't need significant token specific support beyond your usual suspects (Lingering Souls and a smattering of dude+1's like Blade Splicer, etc). You can honestly run this deck with no token producers at all and just aggro dudes, which is cool because it helps synergy overlap.

The problem I ran into with tons of token producers is it just made the above deck even better (not necessary, believe me) and it forced me to run a ton of sweeper effects and 2 for 1 removal spells to counter the token strategies. Which certainly is one solution, but a lot of the sweepers hurt other decks more than they hurt tokens so it wasn't really having the desired effect on balance.

Other cubes are faster and higher power, so YMMV obviously. But for me, less was more when it came to actual token producing cards.

Quote from joekinguyr »

What about Cenn's Enlistment ?

Way too durdly for any normal cube. I'd run all the CMC 2 make 2 guys, procession, battle screech, captain's call, Conqueror's Pledge (only 1 more mana for 3x as many tokens!), elspeth tirel, increasing devotion, martial coup, midnight haunting, secure the wastes, triplicate spirits, and white sun's zenith all before enlistment if I was trying really hard to push white tokens.

Wow, no-one has mentioned Cathars' Crusade yet? I understand that I'm running in a slower environment, where this card is the nutter butters for a token deck, but I'd have thought it would at least rate somewhat of a mention as an anthem for the faster cubes...

You can use Dictate of Heliod instead, and actually get some value from your 5cc investment...

Dictate of Heliod seems better to me, and it's already very hard to find room for that, with its CMC of 5.

Ah, that makes sense - I figured it would indeed be something like that in the faster cubes. Dictate does indeed give an immediate payoff where Cathars' does not.
Cathars' is obviously the better card in slower environments, though (where I have the time and space to spam the board with tokens and ramp them up to 11).

I'm not entirely sure. Have you played Dictate in that same environment? The flash can be a nutty effect in big boards with lots of combat, I think it'd be good in your environment too.

I don't think Cathars is better in slow environment. If you control 3 creatures and play another, Cathars give that creature +4/+4. However, Dictate will give +2/+2 across the board for the total of +8/+8. The time that Cathars is closest is when you have no creature, when Cathars would give that creature +1/+1. Even then, Dictate will give that creature +2/+2.

And that's not even including flash.

Well, cathar's is certainly better than dictate in a truly long game, as once you have played 2 creatures is basically the same, and anything more and it gets better. One spectral procession and you're at +3/+3 for all your guys except the 3 spirits, who are +2/+2, and one full lingering souls and you're at +4/+4, +3/+3, and +1/+1. I just think most games don't go that long and being able to use dictate as a combat trick makes it better.

Quote from asmallcat »

Well, cathar's is certainly better than dictate in a truly long game, as once you have played 2 creatures is basically the same, and anything more and it gets better. One spectral procession and you're at +3/+3 for all your guys except the 3 spirits, who are +2/+2, and one full lingering souls and you're at +4/+4, +3/+3, and +1/+1. I just think most games don't go that long and being able to use dictate as a combat trick makes it better.

Creatures that enter with Cathars' Crusade out get a counter as well, your Spectral Procession spirits would all be +3/+3 as soon as they enter

Having played with both, Dictate is much better for ending the game. Being able to play it as a combat trick is huge. I'd rather have a Cathars' on the board after a Wrath though, and in a very slow format it will make your creatures huge. I don't think it makes up for the fact that a lot of the time Cathars' will lose games that you would've won if you had Dictate, and win games that Dictate would also have won.

Huh, for some reason I thought it said each other creature.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I'm not entirely sure. Have you played Dictate in that same environment? The flash can be a nutty effect in big boards with lots of combat, I think it'd be good in your environment too.

Can't say I have... might have to give it a shot.
The optimal play in my cube is probably T5 Cathars', T6 Captain of the Watch, so Cathars' starts winning on T6 in Magical Christmasland, but there's certainly value in making people pay faster.

What are people's thoughts on Promise of Bunrei ?

Bros you have got to get on board the Assemble the Legion train. It is off the HOOK!

Quote from Snobby Bok Choy »

What are people's thoughts on Promise of Bunrei ?

If the tokens had flying, I would play it.

Quote from FiveFingers »

Bros you have got to get on board the Assemble the Legion train. It is off the HOOK!

I have been considering it for a while. It just seems so slow. I'm currently playing Gisela and Iroas as some of my boros cards. Would you include Assemble the Legion over any of them?

Assemble can take a game over, but it was far too slow for us when we played it.

Dammit, thought those spirit tokens had flying...... meh then

I have cubed with Assemble the Legion

Sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's win more, half the time its just a gas to play!

Worse than then top 5 boros cards.

Quote from Chisinf »

Worse than then top 5 boros cards.

That's pretty obvious. I'm curious if it is better than than the 7-8th slot in boros, which I currently have as Iroas and Gisela. And I think it is worse than those. The more I think about it, the more useless it seems actually. It does nothing the turn you play it, which means you need to have a better board presence than your opponent when you play it. And even then, the investment won't be worth it until 3 turns later.
It is a fun card and I would have loved it, had it cost 4 mana instead.