[ANK] Cascading Cataracts
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This card can cast all magic cards 5 mana or less.
It taps for colorless mana to cast the colorless ones.
It's also an industrictible land which has major applications in matchups where you need lands and your opponent plays wasteland.
Lands with 3 unique abilities are not commonplace.
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Non-Legendary makes it very interesting
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Agreed. Hopefully they continue to design more lands that are indestructible with better abilities than this card.
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So good with Grim Monolith, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt
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@desolutionist yeah and in addition I think it; because it's indestructible, it could help paradoxical decks in the shops matchup. With the printing of ballista it is less likely to see null rod run in shops, so since your mana rocks are typically online the lands become the weak spot.
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It nets you -1 mana so I think it's pretty awful...
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I have I think three 3-1s in MTGO dailies with Paradoxical Outcome decks sporting a rainbow land manabase (4 Spire of Industry, 2 Mana Confluence, 2 Glimmervoid, and Academy). Being able to pretty consistently play spells in all five colors is pretty awesome. Nevertheless, I've since preferred to return to the more traditional island-fetchland package. The shuffle effects make your Tops way better, and (along with tutors) allow you to run Brainstorm. But, more importantly, the mana base vs. Shops is way better, since you can keep a fetchland uncracked or just get basic Island.
This new card definitely changes the calculus. Still, my gut says relying on six mana to get this card to work is too sketchy too incentivize me to abandon the fetchland package again.
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I think this is a step in the right direction for lands but quite simply there are a lot more steps that need taken. I'm a huge fan of the indestructible. But honestly this would be better if it was shimmering grotto with indestructible. 2:1 mana filtering is still a loss but its not nearly as big of a commitment to use. Needing 5 other mana aside from this land means you are either ahead on mana and not concerned with it or you aren't getting there because you are behind on mana from wasteland and chalice at 0.
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I was thinking something similar. That if the ability was scalable by X it would be absolutely insane.
But something like an additional ability of --
4, Tap: add 4 many of any single color to your mana pool -- would have maybe tipped it over the fence into the playable category.Then give the bonus of any combinations at 5.
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@fsecco nails it. Contrast Ancient Tomb, one of the absolute best lands in the entire format, to this.... yeah.
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I feel like something cute should be possible with Candelabra, but the math doesn't add up.
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Looks pretty powerful in PO Storm, or potentially some kind of Colorless+Ux Metalworker deck. One of the things that you often run into with that deck is being hampered by the amount of colored Mana you can produce while having essentially unlimited Colorless/Off-Color (GW especially).
I agree that running this pushes you a bit more to a Rainbow Land manabse which works worse with Brainstorm and Sensei's Divining Top - but that can maybe be mitigated with just an additional copy or two of Preordain, possibly Candelabra if you can manage to incorporate Ancient Tombs into the manabase as well...
It's definitely something to think about. The card is at the very least interesting to theorize about.
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@fsecco
1 of its abilities nets you -1 mana.
Another 1 of its abilities is on par with 95% of other land in the format.
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@gkraigher that's an easily testable statement because most decks run 10-20 lands so we can see if this is better than even 1 out of 20 lands in current strategies.
Gush of all varieties: no
Shops of all varieties: no
White bears of all varieties: no
Old school combo control: no
BUG control: no
Paradox combo: no
Dredge: n/aDoes it enable something new or exciting? Maybe... but you pay for it dearly. More than 19 of 20 lands in the format either tap for colored mana, tap for multiple mana, or have an ability worth at least half a mana.
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@ribby said in [ANK] Cascading Cataracts:
@fsecco nails it. Contrast Ancient Tomb, one of the absolute best lands in the entire format, to this.... yeah.
Ancient Tomb gets Wastelanded though...
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@desolutionist No one ever played Darksteel Citadel in Shops. We're really not playing this now.
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@fsecco
Darksteel Citadel used to be played in Control Slaver. The biggest knock on it is that it only generates colorless mana and is shut down by Null Rod. This new card is an indestructible, colorful mana source. It's ability to generate 5 of any color mana shouldn't be viewed in a vacuum. This land is kind of unprecedented because if you have 4 in your hand, you can pretty much guarantee you'll get 4 mana in that game. You cannot say that about any other mana source, other than maybe Sylvan Caryatid, since everyone in Vintage is after your mana.
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I agree that this card wouldn't be played in any archetype right now. But that doesn't mean it isn't a vintage quality card.
This card could open up a deck with all the draw 7s, 4 grim monolith, multiple voltaic key, etc.
It also helps colorless decks splash 1 color a lot easier.
Is this totally unplayable in Eldrazi? It seems like it survives, adds colorless mana, and can be used to cast world breaker. There are a lot of good Eldrazi that require colored mana.
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Currently the deck with draw 7 and monolith is Storm, which would definitely like to occasionally convert all that colorless mana into a handful of black and extra blue. But. PO storm is going off turn one or two and usually you've already played a land by the time you have the opportunity to get this powered out. Not sure what other shell would want it? 5c Stax type build?
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I'm a bit surprised to see this land getting so much traction. Why does Vintage, of all formats, need to pay such a steep price for color-fixing?
