MTG Salvation

I prefer hole by a longshot. Being capable of Clearing Oko/Arcane Artisan/Sulfuric Vortex/etc is big game, but 3 colors is pretty inconsistent to get that early in the game. This is going to be a 2-mana portable hole half the time which is sorta lame. Not to mention we don't get to make p-hole jokes with this one, which I value very highly.

But that's the thing, I don't know if most cube decks really want a 2 damage removal spell that only hits creatures. There's gonna be matchups where this creature is great, but a whole lot where it's actively bad and doesn't have the liberty to even just be tempo-ed out as a piker, and in slower decks where you might be interested in just the removal I don't think the body remains super meaningful. That's a petty huge issue. At least Flametongue Kavu is super splashable, but even that card is really showing its age imo.

Maybe I'm overestimating how often this won't have valid enemy targets? Or how hard it is to get on curve in an agressive two-color deck to snipe mana dorks and Thalias? Sure you could treat this as a removal spell in deckbuilding, but it deals 2 damage and can't go face, that's not an effect that is typically all that strong on turns 4 or 5 when this might find its first target of the game.

One thing I do really like is this does seems really solid in red ramp decks even if it's clunky in reagular midrange decks. Those decks just get runnover in the earlygame sometimes so this could be a big help early, and this is a removal spell that still has tons of value if you topdeck it with 10+ mana later.

Card looks absurd for us in powered imo

We play powered, so whoever picks this will always have a mox or piece of power to fetch, and a colorless land that can tap to make 2 giant artifact tokens is frankly insane, that being before you even factor in the potential for Wrenn and Six/Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator/Life from the Loam/Kiora's Follower/any of the other thousand ways to recur or untap lands in cube. This is a legitimate win condition strapped onto an untapped colorless land.

Only real weaknesses are that it's an enchantment that can be hit by Reclamation Sage/Knight of Autumn/Teferi, Time Raveler/Pest Infestation/etc and it's probably not great if you don't have something to fetch. But tbh I think that's only an issue for unpowered cubes since most decks in powered can typically get one copy of an OG Mox/Black Lotus/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt/Mana Vault or even lesser artifacts like Skullclamp/Pithing Needle/Sensei's Divining Top, and even if they don't somebody else who does will gladly pick this card. It should also be mentioned that Sagas trigger only after the draw phase ends, so if you decide to float mana on the third turn in response to the sacrifice trigger you will still have access to the mana until the end of your first main phase, so if you grab a mox off the tutor this will effectively ramp you an extra colorless mana for the turn at no cost.

Absolutely filthy

Edit: Just realized this also grabs Bomat Courier, this just keeps getting better

We played this card for years but ended up cutting it due to 4-drop density in white. Card wants 2 good high-cmc walkers (or just one expensive and one really powerful mid-cmc backup walker, like grabbing a Gideon Jura/Jace, the Mind Sculptor is completely serviceable as your backup option behind your Ugin, the Ineffable/Elspeth, Sun's Champion/Ugin, the Spirit Dragon) to be good, which was surprisingly easy. Only issue is you have to be able to actually cast the walker in your deck consistently, which makes Rector mostly just a control and combo card (ramp being included in combo).

You don't need sac outlets to make the card good, it's plenty strong in its own, as most slow decks that play white have sweepers and are looking to dissuade attacks early. We cut it for space so we could play stuff from the new sets, but the card is definitely playable at our size imo as long as you have enough planeswalkers worth tutoring for, we just didn't think it was super exciting or necessary.

I should also probably mention that it's pretty solid in some very specific combo decks too for finding your special combo walkers, like Nahiri, the Harbinger in Eldrazi combo decks, Tezzeret the Seeker and Ral Zarek in Time Vault decks, or even Narset, Parter of Veils in your Wheel of Fortune variant combo decks if you happen to support those. That's definitely more narrow and doesn't come up nearly as often as you think it might, but it can be useful sometimes.

Man Liliana, Death's Majesty has been absolutely fantastic for us in a variety of decks, I don't think they necessarily have to compete for that same slot. With that said, this card does seem pretty good when compared to something like Show and Tell, seeing as most decks really don't have huge payouts to cheat into play given the opportunity if not specifically built around it like your own deck. I'm pretty sure you almost always copy this, which is also a great way to play around counterspells.

It's also good to mention that this can technically grab Eldrazi in case you support Shallow Grave/Corpse Dance/Goryo's Vengeance/Makeshift Mannequin Eldrazi combos in black..

We've had snow cards in our paper cube since MH1, so these new ones look great but we won't be able to play them until covid ends since XMage doesn't support snow lands for custom drafts. Ascendant Spirit and Narfi, Betrayer King look incredible, and alongside Arcum's Astrolabe (and I guess on a technicality Coldsteel Heart) round out our snow section. We had to cut Icehide Golem, Frostwalk Bastion and Ice-Fang Coatl for space about a year ago but they're great too, and if our cube were any bigger we'd bring them back as well (specifically the Golem, might even replace Crawling Barrens with it because I miss it so much).

Reidane, God of the Worthy seems alright, but all decks that don't have snow cards in them would rather play regular basics in a format with this card, and although it looks alright even without the snow land effect, I don't think its good enough to justify a slot.

I think this looks really cool, seems to specifically affect Blue, Green, and Black the most which is certainly a plus. Flash is such a powerful ability and this guy is even a decent planeswalker killer, just eats up JTMS, Narset, Xenagos, T3feri, etc. It's a creature too so its easy to tutor for it off of tutor effects themselves to grab it consistently, or even just to flash in EOT to sneak in with an equipment or a Fallen Shinobi. Maybe its just better in powered cubes since it lets you punish people with better decks than you, but I'm excited to play this card.

Seems like a premier black 3 drop in cube imo and I can't wait to test this guy, especially alongside cards like Path to Exile, Winds of Abandon, and most notably Assassin's Trophy.

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

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

Quote from NotScottMescudi »

Quote from allred123 »

The problem with Kitesail Freebooter (not saying it's a bad card), but trying to beat down with kitesail would take 20 turns unless you get equipment etc.

Yes, but it carries equipment, deals a few extra points of damage, and actually offers disruption for cheap. Freebooter can even be tutored vs combo off of certain creature tutors if necessary which is sweet.

This card is only playable in aggro and doesn't even seem to shine there. I doubt that this could even fit into half of all black midrange decks because many of them are in colors pairs that don't grant the early aggression necessary to get this guy down. This guy is just a pile of stats for an aggro deck that cares less about stats and more about hand and mana disruption than any other color. I'm having serious trouble imagining this being worth it.

Black is the color that I think varies most from cube to cube in terms of what it's trying to do. Some cubes are high on the 2-power 1-drops, others like the MTGO cubes and Justin Parnell's SCG cube have cut all of those and are more about disrupting turns 1 and 2, then playing good 3s and 4s, or comboing out instead of beating down. Looking at your list, I see you've subscribed more to that strategy. I think in that style of cube, Spawn of Mayhem looks terrible. If you don't go 1-drop into 2-drop, a Wall of Omens or Spellskite will shutdown Spectacle, and when your 2-drops are things like Dark Confidant and Kitesail Freebooter, your opponent is incentivized to use removal on that 2-drop, which also blanks Spectacle. When you can't rely on Spectacle, you're much better off playing Gonti or Kalitas.

I think in a cube with the black 1-drops, Spawn of Mayhem looks okay. Not great, but possibly better than Mardu Strike Leader or whatever the weakest black 3-drop is in the list. I think it looks more like a lateral change than an upgrade to anything I'm currently running, so I'm not planning on adding it right away, but I will be interested in seeing how it plays for others.

Shallow Anal?

This is intended an article, a collection of my cube experiences with less popular cards, but I encourage people to share their own afterwards.

Is there any cards in your list that you think may have been missed by forum members that worked out great for you? Is there a card that you tested a year ago, loved, championed, but have now cut?

Below is a comprehensive list of cards that I don't think are unanimously played, I've played a lot with and why I like them.

FWIW a lot of these opinions aren't just mine, I actively probe my playgroup for feedback, and regularly have discussions with them on cards in my cube. The following opinions were formed through a lot of testing unless otherwise stated.
Also, every cube environment is different and some cards may not be suited to yours. I try to mention that when possible.

Cards that were slept on , but I feel people are coming around to
Craterhoof behemoth
Gaea's cradle
Massacre wurm
Karakas
Collective brutality
Palace Jailer

These are all clear 360-450 staples in my eyes, unpowered, powered, whatever... The first three i've had literal hundreds of cubes experience with now, and my whole playgroup would agree. I would literally wager everything I own, laying 5 to 1 odds that on a power level basis, they deserve a slot in 98%+ of cubes who's design philosophy is primarily based on "pick the best cards from magics history and put them in a limited draft format".

The first 2 are among the top ~150 powerful cards in cube.

Powerful Narrow/Fringe cards, not for every cube

-Mishra's workshop, If you are playing a powered cube and supporting the "artifact.dec" this is one of the better cards in the archtype. It's no tolarian academy, but it's still very powerful and worth supporting. It requires a certain artifact density, mana rocks, payoff etc. A little more than 1/10th of my cube is artifacts and that feels about right. If you run a support the artifact.dec with artifact specific cards, you should be playing this card.

-Fastbond/Zuran orb/Crucible of worlds Combo, I tried FOREVER to make fastbond work and failed time and time again. FINALLY, I got it to work as a competitive archetype but it needs a LOT of support. Outside of zuran orb, all the support cards are fine cube cards on their own though. I'm very confident I did get it to work. The perfect fastbond combo deck is as good as any deck in cube, but it only gets drafted 1/5 cubes or so. It's a cool archetype and has a very "power" esque feel to it since your nut draws are completely broken. it's super fun and complex to play. My only fear is that the duplicate fetch lands in my cube, contribute to it's potency and it wouldn't work well as a two color deck.

If you want to make it work, I'd say you need a cube 360-485 in size (high density of draw 7's is critical), and need every cubeable draw 7 printed , courser of kruphix, tireless tracker, enlightened tutor, ramunap excavator, strip mine. I think I posted a more comprehensive list on the fastbond thread.
You do not need the obscure lands matters cards like Gitrog monster, Titania etc. but they do make the archetype better.


Bazaar of baghdad
Very powerful, very narrow. In an ideal all-in reanimator deck, it is THE BEST enabler along with entomb. Helps if you have urborg. I currently do not run it, as I found it too narrow for my tastes... Not every style of reanimator decks wants it, and it's only good in reanimator. You might enjoy it, especially if you value historic cards in your cube. We tested it at a long time and it was excellent in decks that wanted discard outlets.

FWIW, Every 9 months or so we do a cube rotisserie draft with best players in my group. Reanimator has won it 3/4 times and everyone agreed bazaar was the MVP of those decks... We are actually BANNING bazaar from the next rotisserie. It's upside is that high.

Lake of the dead
This one caught me by surprise, but far exceeded my expectations in testing. This may sound crazy, but I actually think it is the best mono black payoff in cube, but it entirely depends on how your black section is built.
I think most black sections around here are built supporting hyper agro, reanimator and a sprinkle of control. I am unconfident about how this land will function within that paradigm.

I assure you that a midrange mono black "devotion" build is very possible to support in a singleton cube and is competitive. If you are unhappy with your black section for whatever reason, I strongly recommend running the following experiment. Prune some of the worst of your agressive creatures, removal spells, or very narrow black cards and ensure you have the following.

-Enough discard outlets in black to make close to mono-black reanimator a thing. Collective brutality , divest etc.
-Massacre wurm and grave titan (a 3rd 6 drop would be welcome, but not needed). The 6 drops are critical to the strategy.
-A 2 drop or two that can block well. Gifted Aetherborn and relentless dead I think are the best. the 1/3 warrior from the new set is interesting too.
-Geralf's messenger/Gray merchant of asphodel.
-A decent black payoff card advantage spell, either Profane command or Wretched confluence is good.
-Lake of the dead

What this build does is it leverages most of the best black cards in cube, without forcing you to go all-in reanimator. While not every black card is great in the build, almost every black card is playable allowing you to semi-force mono black without train wrecking. Recurring nightmare and skull clamp are extremly powerful cards in the build, reanimate becomes a fine value card. Massacre wurm is even better when backed up with ground beat downs, and grave titan is one of the best creatures in cube. When you are putting a lot of black permanants in play, Gray merchant becomes excellent (also is absurd with recurring nightmare).

Dark ritual and Lake of the dead give the deck a very high level of explosiveness. When backed up with some disruption from discard spells, an early grave titan, or dumping your hand of powerful 3drops is often game over against non-control decks.
With lake of the dead, the sequence of
Turn 1 - swamp , Discard spell
Turn 2,- swamp , 2 drop
Turn 3,- lake of the dead, Grave titan is extremly busted.

Lake of the dead is also not "devotion only", it is ok in heavy black agro and excellent in mostly black reanimator, if most of the creatures you reanimate are colorless or black. (5 drop Liliana , grave titan, massacre wurm, wurmcoil engine). Even a turn 5 hardcast griselbrand, turn 4 hardcast myr battlesphere happens and is solid.

Leovold, Emissary of Trest
This card is only great in cubes with very good fixing. I'm continually amazed by how many cards leovold shuts down or draws cards off that I never noticed before. in 3+ color decks, this is one of the best payoffs out there. I don't recommend him for the majority of cubes, but if you feel like your mana is great and you get a lot of 3+ color decks, give it a whirl. He's more than earned a slot in my cube.

Breya, Etherium Shaper
An even more extreme example of a card that's only great in cubes with very very good fixing. At the moment my cube has double duals, double fetches, single shocks and 1 manland/other @500 AND the only conspiracy I run is unexpected potential. Breya is a beast of a card that has all sorts of synergy in cube IF you can cast it a decent consistency. We've cast her a lot, and she's extremly good.

Temporal Mastery
The cubes I do recommend it for, are for cubes that run arcane savant, but don't want to run cards that are only good under arcane savant, or are potentially too broken (cruel ultimatum and summon the pack).
With a brain storm and a mystical tutor, or a scroll rack and a vampiric tutor, temporal mastery is very solid card by itself and doesn't need arcane savant. It's probably the best arcane savant payoff in my cube at the moment.

In my cube I run double brainstorm, and the extra brainstorm is enough to make temporal mastery deserve a slot without arcane savant.

Generic good cards, underappreciated that are 450-540 range

negate/spell pierce
Counter spells are awsome in cube because a lot of strategies aim to leverage broken non-creature spells, or very expesnive spells (planeswalkers etc.). If your opponents are casting tutors like vampiric tutor to set them up, a well timed counter spells often generates multiple cards of value.
Cards like time spiral or upheavel can outdo all the card advantage you've accumulated in a single card. Denying their resolution is essential.
Even agro decks run broken non-creautre spells like armageddon, equipment, burn spells etc.

They are main deckable effects in cube for the same reason duress is. In fact I don't think know if I've ever seen either negate or spell pierce ride a sidebord in a deck with 7+ islands heh.

I personally don't like to run TOO many counter spells as it reduces the power level of combo decks, which are among the more fun decks to draft... But negate/spell pierce definitely deserve a slot in power level for mid sized cubes.

I currently am only running negate.


Serum visions/Gitaxian probe
Cantrips in blue are good, and these ones are very solid. I do not think they are a must play in small cubes, as you want to strike a balance between generic good cards, a variety of CMC's , a variety of archetypes etc... But I believe some people overestimate the value of expensive cards in cube for larger cubes and vastly underestimate cantrips. In no world would I play neither of these two @540. The best blue decks in cube have a high density of cantrips, they dig for your broken cards (power), your combo pieces, answers, provide GY food for dig through time/treasure cruise/tasigur/grim lavamancer, trigger prowess for mentor/pyromancer/thing in the ice.

Serum visions is better if the deck contains 8+ blue sources, but I like gitaxian probe as any non-blue combo deck is happy to play it, and it still has all the benefits of prowess/GY food above. Seeing your opponents hand is a powerful effect that is easy to underestimate. I'm not sure which i'd rather support if I could pick one.
There's a reason why some cantrips have been banned and every modern/legacy blue deck runs tons
They are both in my cube at the moment.

Shelldock isle
Very good for supporting blue Eldrazi/Griselbrand combo decks that is also a fine value playable in any slow blue deck. It took me a while to come around to this card. It wasn't until a group member ranted and raved about me including it, I begrudgingly included it. Right away he played it all the time and crushed me with it. Eventually, I drafted it myself a bunch, THEN I fully respected it's power. It's in my cube at the moment and not on the chopping block.

Glorybringer
I dismissed glory bringer when I read it.. Seemed powerful , but not good enough to compete with a super stacked section. I eventually tested it around half way into it's standard season, and it's done nothing but impress me. There's a good chance it is the #1 cube red 5 drop by a very small margin. Thundermaw, zealous conscripts and siege-gang commander are all optimized in slightly different builds.. so it kind of depends on how your red decks play out and your cube format. It's competition is so close to it, that I don't hate not including it... But if you aren't running purphorous, or see a ton of revilark/alesha type decks, I would strongly advise testing it over seige-gang commander. And if you don't run kiki-jiki combo, I'd test it as a #3 red 5 drop at least.

It's like sarkhan dragonspeaker, but you get to +1 it AND -3 it on the same turn and replaces vulnerability to combat damage to vulnerability to wraths/doomblade. I think it's much better than sarkhan and I see a lot of people still running him. Wildfire is the only archetype where that's an exception and glorybringer's not even that much worse in wildfire!

Whisperwood elemental
I know a lot of people here have tested it and it fallen short, but that surprises me. It's around #4 or #5 green 5 drop for me. It's resiliency combined with the potential of running away with the game is why I like it so much. I am happy to have it in my list, and when I am searching for green cuts, I don't really consider it. I've played a LOT with it since Khans block was printed. The better green 5 drops have clearly better upside when built with synergies in mind, but by itself, it may be my best main deck green 5 drop creature for ramp decks. Protection from wraths/Ugin is big.

Territorial Hellkite
This one slipped through the cracks of spoiler season for a lot of people, ANOTHER red 4 drop? we dont need one of those! But it's performed very well for me. Very close to hellrider in power level. Maybe 5% worse in decks with a bunch of creatures, but in creature light deck (UR spells for example) with an aggressive slant it is much better. I would 100% play it over hazoret, which I think is worse in cube than constructed for a bunch of reasons.

Rampaging Ferocidon
Ended up just cutting it to test Najeela, but Rampaging ferocidon performed very well for me since I started testing it from ixalan spoiler season. Shutting down life gain is so so important for red, and a 3/3 menace body is far from bad. Winning games through griselbrand and sphinx of the steel wind is a good feeling
Basically, think of what the two worst things for red decks are, life gain and lots of blockers. This card restricts the BEST way that red decks are combatted and thus, is at it's best in red's worst matchups. It's a red agro only card though, and the 3rd best at the time of writing, so not for the smallest cubes. It also is better with burn than it is with lots of other creatures. So it depends a bit on the composition of your red section.

It's underwhelming if they have a bunch of wraths or something, but red decks with burn don't care too much about that. and a mediocore card in a matchup that's already very good is totally fine.

Ashen Rider
Orzhov classification is part of the reason I think so few people consider this card, but the casting cost is misleading. You basically never hardcast it so it may as well cost 4BBBRRBWU. However, it's a strong playble in the majority of cheaty archetypes in cube.
Ashen rider goes in and out of my list , I primarily bring it in if I think both reanimator and sneak/show/eureka are underperforming. It gives a shot in the arm to both archetypes.
It has one of the best floors out of any reanimation target period. Stabalizing the board, or crippling the opponents mana base. Your opponent losing a removal spell and two of their best permanants is pretty hard to come back from, and often buys you time to reanimate something else.
It's good against literally every archetype and almost every board state in cube. Nice karakas bro!

In my re-animator decks, I think it's about the 3rd-4th? best target in cube (if hardcasting doesnt matter) and sneak and show decks it's not the very best, but it's still quite powerful. I also love it with eureka, because it can answer the things that can potentially answer the eldrazi/ugin you also put into play (say they put in a karn , an oblivion ring, a sower of temptation, or Emrakul of their own).

At the moment I am not running Ashen rider, but If my cube ever went to 540 in size , it would have a permanent home.

Vraska's Contempt
I and most people dismissed the card during spoiler season for being 4 mana instead of 3, and all the competition that comes at the four mana slot in cube.
However, after losing back to back against blightsteel colosus in my black deck and seeing vraska's contempt in standard, I decided to give it a whirl.
It pleasently surprised me and confirmed my theory.
I now think its slightly better than Never//Return and Ruinous path overall.

The main reasons are, exile >> destroy. With reanimator being a commonly deck, indestructible creatures, recursive creatures etc. Black doesn't have many good answers to resilient creatures and cube has a lot of them. They typically have to x for 1 themselves, or hope that they land an edict on an empty board. There's a fair number of generic kill spells, but that doesn't deal well with a woodfall primus for example. I want my versatile expensive kill spells to be as versatile as possible

Instant > Sorcery, it may not always be obvious, but there are many times where instant speed is relevant for agressive decks. And for UB control decks it's 1000000x better.
Gain 2 life is nice and non-neglible, especially in black which has so much incidental life loss.

I currently am running Vraska's contempt, and am not running never//return.



Wretched Confluence
A card I just cut in my most recent batch of updates, but one that is very solid. I've been playing it since the confluence cycle got spoiled and have seen it done great work. It didn't see much play outside of UB control, but was still an ok 22nd playable outside of that deck. IN that deck it's insane. Especially with torrential gearhulk
UB control doesn't come up quite often enough for me to feel the need to keep it as I'm performing some weird tests at the moment. It could easily come back. At 540 it would have a permanant home



Ashiok, Nightmare weaver
This card potentially should go in my first section on a power level basis, but I personally loathe the gameplay it presents, and don't like it's synergies. I don't like the card, but I cannot deny it's power level. It's clear top 4 in dimir (most of my playgroup believes #2), but meh, I hate it
I recommend testing it if you haven't given it it's proper due and don't care about milling.

Jace , Memory adept
I dislike this card even more than ashiok for gameplay reasons, but again, I can't deny it's power. Unlike ashiok I havent tested jace much, but I have played it in other cubes, and the mill effect is super super good. It may be less good in cubes that support agro thoroughly though. MTG salvation forums cubes tend to support agro better than most cubes I've seen IRL. I'm not recommending this card, only mentioning it for completion.