Thank you. I didn't convert to cube to hear people make power level judgments. At the last draft table I also heard two guys claiming that a card was "not good enough for cube" as if that made any sense. It made no sense in 2012 and it's a real crime to still say nonsense like that in 2026. Could we AT LEAST here at the riptide labs stop doing that?
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
The channel lands likeSpeaking of "not good enough for cube,"
Give me your best bounceland synergies.
Right now I'm looking at returning MDFCs to "draw" a spell and, obviously, it's worth an extra land. Anything else cool about them?
and the adventure lands like
are sweet with bouncelands
I also like them with land counting effects like:
I'm going to assume that you're not interested in Amulet of Vigor and related stupid nonsense, so...
OK, they don't have to be the blue ones, but stuff that untaps lands or lets you play multiple a turn are good, and utility lands that do something on ETB also benefit pretty well.
---
OK, for those of you in the audience who are willing to consider silver-bordered cards, I just noticed something:
When this was printed in 2018, the second ability was a little goofy because the range of counters you could pick from honestly wasn't that big, and most of them didn't have intrinsic rules effects.
In this post-Ikoria era, that is no longer the case thanks to ability counters (and Finality, Shield, and Stun counters) now being a thing. And that's before you include the weird stuff from playtest cards like manabond and base power 4.
What a weird extreme power-up.
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landfall guys and Fastbond. lol. but to be serious for a moment here:Speaking of "not good enough for cube,"
Give me your best bounceland synergies.
Right now I'm looking at returning MDFCs to "draw" a spell and, obviously, it's worth an extra land. Anything else cool about them?
EDIT: Untappers.
I think Sunken Palace specifically has the issue where it's unlikely to ever be generic goodstuff due to it's low power level. Even in a weaker environment where something like Colossal Dreadmaw is the unquestioned king of the format, spending a net two mana and needing to exile seven cards from your graveyard in order to copy something once is unlikely to be something you can reasonably set up without additional support. It just requires way too much setup to work as goodstuff even in situations where it's around other mediocre cards.
Context is definitely an important element to card evaluation, but there is a huge diversity of cards that are so niche or support dependent that they can never truly be generic goodstuff.
I'll add a few leave the battlefield cards
Also stuff like Windbrisk Heights and the generically good Surveil lands.
And one of my favorite untappers
Also stuff like Windbrisk Heights and the generically good Surveil lands.
And one of my favorite untappers
Yes, there are just lots of things that outclass it now.
Is this cute li'l guy still GRBS in 2026?
Still a dumb card when it can get going, but I don't think it's nearly as problematic nowadays with how much bigger creatures are at lower CMC and how much more efficient removal has become. The real issue is how boring it is to play with. The window for interaction before it locks up a game has become longer, but just pitching cards to make rats is a waste of a game.
The upcoming Rat King, Verminister looks way more fun to play with at the same slot.
The upcoming Rat King, Verminister looks way more fun to play with at the same slot.
Which is part of the reason I'm asking - if I recall correctly, the problem with the card is less that villain can't adequately deal with it and more that "pay
and feed a card to your rat army" was stronger than actually playing said card.In other words, does the fact that things outclass it now mean that it's become a late-game card you feed excess lands and early game dorks to instead of the best possible thing you can be doing at every point in the game? Has powercreep hit the point where you could reasonably run it alongside some incidental rats to create a little rat subtheme that'd come together once every few drafts, or would it still be a high pick for a generic black deck?
I think that the delta between those two possibilities is too small to present a realistic target. You could probably run it in something like MODO Vintage cube just fine, but it would be a backup card for Jund that you use when other options have run dry--seems pretty safe and maybe kind of fun there. I don't think this intentionally gets played alongside other Rats, though.Which is part of the reason I'm asking - if I recall correctly, the problem with the card is less that villain can't adequately deal with it and more that "pay
In other words, does the fact that things outclass it now mean that it's become a late-game card you feed excess lands and early game dorks to instead of the best possible thing you can be doing at every point in the game? Has powercreep hit the point where you could reasonably run it alongside some incidental rats to create a little rat subtheme that'd come together once every few drafts, or would it still be a high pick for a generic black deck?
No, I don't think so unfortunately. If you are playing Pack Rat, you are almost always either all in on activating it repeatedly or you are not activating it at all and just chumping with it or something along those lines. While Pack Rat is relatively less powerful than it used to be, the issue with it has always been the incentive structure that demands you do nothing but feed your cards to it in order to produce more rats. The existence of more powerful things means players are just less likely to want to put rats in their decks than they would have been when the card was new.Which is part of the reason I'm asking - if I recall correctly, the problem with the card is less that villain can't adequately deal with it and more that "pay
In other words, does the fact that things outclass it now mean that it's become a late-game card you feed excess lands and early game dorks to instead of the best possible thing you can be doing at every point in the game? Has powercreep hit the point where you could reasonably run it alongside some incidental rats to create a little rat subtheme that'd come together once every few drafts, or would it still be a high pick for a generic black deck?
There are a lot of cards that are good and cool and powerful that encourage unfun gameplay, even now. I think there are better things to do than Pack Rat, but even in higher power environments, you're either only playing and activating it or you're skipping it entirely. So long as your opponent doesn't have an explosive start or a wrath, it can still be unstoppable after 2-3 turns. That's not a great situation!
I come from low powered where you get a few turns without an answer before you die, but a few turns sound a lot better than a card from the grbs sets they created since the old frame.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Its like a razors edge where it's even interesting.
Is this cute li'l guy still GRBS in 2026?
Its really hard to find a power level where making another rat isn't the best thing you can do with a given card you draw, or just not even worth it.
of note also: the mono black devotion deck that played these in standard went t1 thoughtseize t2 rat t3 more rat. which without the targeted discard spell up front was a lot more vulnerable. however despite the retrospective context it remains pretty boring to play and particularly uninteresting to sequence
Salvaging Station Deep Dive
I rediscovered this card recently and I can't stop thinking about the possibilities. It's relatively straight forward to understand, but there are so many ways to abuse it, that I figured I would try to break it down for my own benefit and share the results.
Salvaging Station is at its core an artifact matters payoff. The way it works though is intriguing because you need to care about the GY, about creatures dying and artifacts to recur. To me, it has the hallmarks of an all-timer cube card (if it is already, then I am late to the party!). @KlavierAchse posted on CubeCobra a list of cards that fit this 1 MV artifact theme and I definitely used that as a resource to get started (check out their blog, there are a lot of quality posts there btw).
What 1 MV noncreature artifacts can Salvaging Station recur (non exhaustive list)?
Cantrips
These innocuous artifacts really make a format tick, providing draw smoothing to all colors and enabling all sorts of synergies.
Mana
Returning artifacts that generate mana can lead to some double spell turns or bigger. In a non-powered context, Lotus Bloom is a very exciting target to recur, provided you can discard it first (Artificer's Intuition??) and works great with Tameshi too.
Citadel and other artifact lands offer a rare opportunity to mesh artifacts, lands and GY together. There are some combos in the second part that put those lands to use.
Interaction
You get a wide range of effects to chose from here and can increase or decrease power level playing with the activation cost.
Bodies
I. Fair Station
The <= 1 MV on artifacts isn't unique and you can definitely send a signal to your drafters that they are supposed to care.
1. Tutoring
Artificer's Intuition needs a unique type of cube to function, but that could be a fun design challenge to explore. The other cards are known quantities and will work well. Your tutor targets can determine the power level of the deck to some extent (Urza's Saga is never low power).
2. Recursion redundancy
Auriok Salvagers is a great card to include for this theme, especially if you have some cost reduction effect for your artifacts.
Tameshi is another card that probably warrants a deep dive, but in this context it brings back cheap artifacts, cantrips and gives you another land drop.
You can be less strict with the mana value restriction and that opens the door to other cards.
I love Glissa and having a home for her is exciting! Executioner's Capsule is the nuts, but even without it, incidentally getting an artifact with each removal spell you cast is a lot of slow incremental value.
3. Sacrifice
You can care about artifact sacrifice or creature sacrifice with Salvaging Station which means there are a ton of possible options and permutations of relevant cards.
Anvil and Foundry creating creatures while sacrificing artifacts helps you fulfill both requirements of Salvaging Station. It's neat to find Thopter Foundry having a non-combo application.
For each trinket or bauble you sacrifice, you get a token attached to it which allows you to keep the chain going with a sacrifice outlet.
You are going to be sacrificing low mana value artifacts and hopefully often. These convert the sacrifice into a way to close out the game. Devil can play double duty for when you sacrifice creatures too.
These can bin artifacts for the Station or tutor up important pieces that you need to complete your engine.
Individually or in tandem, these can lead to crazy loops and even infinite combos (see second part).
While clunky, Post is a fantastic card to pair alongside Salvaging Station. It can act as an enabler or redundancy for the Station. Sacrificing both artifacts and creatures is not common after all.
4. Leave the Graveyard
Artifacts leaving the GY via Station can give you bodies needed to untap Station.
5. ETB
You can get incremental value by recurring artifacts with Station
6. Untap
More untaps means more artifacts recurred. The keys and Engine work nicely with artifact mana ramp.
7. Lantern control
I'm going to be honest, I'm not 100% sure how to pull this off. It was in KlavierAchse's post and I would love for them to expand on it if they feel inclined to. My instinct tells me to go with these
Grinding Station lets you bin Lantern so you can recur it with Salvaging Station while milling the opponent.
Bell gives you some redundancy on the mill, while Elixir makes it so that you don't mill out.
II. Combo Station
If you are able to get a 1 mana noncreature artifact that produces a token, you have the setup to go off with Salvaging Station. All you need is a sacrifice outlet!
1. Artifact sacrifice combos
You can use any free artifact sacrifice outlet to get these combos going. You always get infinite ETBs, death triggers and whatever the ability of the sacrifice outlet is.
By virtue of Germ tokens being 0/0 creatures, if you can sacrifice the equipment with Living Weapon, the creature dies, untapping Station. Repeat as many times as needed. Note, you need a sacrifice outlet for artifacts. Mandibular Kite is another option if you dip into White.
Here the Requisitioner provides you with an artifact body to sacrifice. Chromatic Sphere could be any 1 mana noncreature artifact and Ravager could be any free artifact sacrifice outlet.
2. KCI combos
KCI generating
makes it a unique combo piece and this holds true with Salvaging Station. There are many KCI combos and I won't post them all., but these showcase how they work nicely.
Foundry makes artifact creatures which means that with KCI, you can sacrifice both the Foundry and the Servo, netting infinite mana, deaths and ETBs. If you substitute Foundry for Origin Spellbomb, it works too, just don't pay the mana.
I wanted to use this one as an example of some of the more complicated lines you can use. Chromatic Sphere can be any noncreature artifact with MV = 1 and Stonecoil Serpent can be any artifact creature that can be cast for 0 mana and has 0 toughness (Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Marketback Walker come to mind).
3. Karn combos
Karn, Silver Golem animates any noncreature aritfact into a creature, thus fulfilling both Station conditions.
You tap Citadel for mana, turn it into a 0/0 with Karn's ability and recur it with the Station. You get infinite deaths and landfall triggers which is quite rare for a colorless combo. Citadel could be any of the Mirodin artifact lands, you just need it to enter untapped.
Like with KCI, your Karn combos can be pretty complicated. Sphere could once again be any one mana noncreature artifact. Ashnod's Altar could be Phyrexian Altar or KCI. Alternatively, you could use Sol Ring or Mana Vault and forgo the need to use a sacrifice outlet that produces mana, returning to Arcbound Ravager and friends.
4. Esper combos
You use mana from the Mox to activate Foundry, sacrificing said Mox. Then sacrifice the token with Altar and that allows you to recur the Mox with Station. Altar could be any free creature sacrifice outlet and Mana Vault, Sol Ring or any of the OG Moxen could work instead of Opal. Or maybe you have a Mox Jasper and a Changeling Outcast or whatever twisted thing you people are into
This one is similar to the Karn/Citadel one from above but requires you to have Seat of the Synod to tap for Blue mana.
That was a lot to get through and I'm sure I missed half of what is possible with this card. What seems obvious is that it should work very well in Riptide style cubes that already run a lot of the infrastructure needed to make the card tick, such as sacrifice outlets, a graveyard theme and trinkets and baubles to recur. You have to be somewhat careful as it's the kind of card that can "accidentally" go off if you have some of the grindy artifact cards like KCI and other free sacrifice outlets, Scrap Trawler and a variety of cheap artifacts.
Salvaging Station also offers you the option of going fair or unfair, high power or low power depending on your goals. I am definitely adding it to my lower power cube and seriously considering it for my higher powered one.
I rediscovered this card recently and I can't stop thinking about the possibilities. It's relatively straight forward to understand, but there are so many ways to abuse it, that I figured I would try to break it down for my own benefit and share the results.
Salvaging Station is at its core an artifact matters payoff. The way it works though is intriguing because you need to care about the GY, about creatures dying and artifacts to recur. To me, it has the hallmarks of an all-timer cube card (if it is already, then I am late to the party!). @KlavierAchse posted on CubeCobra a list of cards that fit this 1 MV artifact theme and I definitely used that as a resource to get started (check out their blog, there are a lot of quality posts there btw).
What 1 MV noncreature artifacts can Salvaging Station recur (non exhaustive list)?
Cantrips
These innocuous artifacts really make a format tick, providing draw smoothing to all colors and enabling all sorts of synergies.
Mana
Returning artifacts that generate mana can lead to some double spell turns or bigger. In a non-powered context, Lotus Bloom is a very exciting target to recur, provided you can discard it first (Artificer's Intuition??) and works great with Tameshi too.
Citadel and other artifact lands offer a rare opportunity to mesh artifacts, lands and GY together. There are some combos in the second part that put those lands to use.
Interaction
You get a wide range of effects to chose from here and can increase or decrease power level playing with the activation cost.
Bodies
I. Fair Station
The <= 1 MV on artifacts isn't unique and you can definitely send a signal to your drafters that they are supposed to care.
1. Tutoring
Artificer's Intuition needs a unique type of cube to function, but that could be a fun design challenge to explore. The other cards are known quantities and will work well. Your tutor targets can determine the power level of the deck to some extent (Urza's Saga is never low power).
2. Recursion redundancy
Auriok Salvagers is a great card to include for this theme, especially if you have some cost reduction effect for your artifacts.
Tameshi is another card that probably warrants a deep dive, but in this context it brings back cheap artifacts, cantrips and gives you another land drop.
You can be less strict with the mana value restriction and that opens the door to other cards.
I love Glissa and having a home for her is exciting! Executioner's Capsule is the nuts, but even without it, incidentally getting an artifact with each removal spell you cast is a lot of slow incremental value.
3. Sacrifice
You can care about artifact sacrifice or creature sacrifice with Salvaging Station which means there are a ton of possible options and permutations of relevant cards.
Anvil and Foundry creating creatures while sacrificing artifacts helps you fulfill both requirements of Salvaging Station. It's neat to find Thopter Foundry having a non-combo application.
For each trinket or bauble you sacrifice, you get a token attached to it which allows you to keep the chain going with a sacrifice outlet.
You are going to be sacrificing low mana value artifacts and hopefully often. These convert the sacrifice into a way to close out the game. Devil can play double duty for when you sacrifice creatures too.
These can bin artifacts for the Station or tutor up important pieces that you need to complete your engine.
Individually or in tandem, these can lead to crazy loops and even infinite combos (see second part).
While clunky, Post is a fantastic card to pair alongside Salvaging Station. It can act as an enabler or redundancy for the Station. Sacrificing both artifacts and creatures is not common after all.
4. Leave the Graveyard
Artifacts leaving the GY via Station can give you bodies needed to untap Station.
5. ETB
You can get incremental value by recurring artifacts with Station
6. Untap
More untaps means more artifacts recurred. The keys and Engine work nicely with artifact mana ramp.
7. Lantern control
I'm going to be honest, I'm not 100% sure how to pull this off. It was in KlavierAchse's post and I would love for them to expand on it if they feel inclined to. My instinct tells me to go with these
Grinding Station lets you bin Lantern so you can recur it with Salvaging Station while milling the opponent.
Bell gives you some redundancy on the mill, while Elixir makes it so that you don't mill out.
II. Combo Station
If you are able to get a 1 mana noncreature artifact that produces a token, you have the setup to go off with Salvaging Station. All you need is a sacrifice outlet!
1. Artifact sacrifice combos
You can use any free artifact sacrifice outlet to get these combos going. You always get infinite ETBs, death triggers and whatever the ability of the sacrifice outlet is.
By virtue of Germ tokens being 0/0 creatures, if you can sacrifice the equipment with Living Weapon, the creature dies, untapping Station. Repeat as many times as needed. Note, you need a sacrifice outlet for artifacts. Mandibular Kite is another option if you dip into White.
Here the Requisitioner provides you with an artifact body to sacrifice. Chromatic Sphere could be any 1 mana noncreature artifact and Ravager could be any free artifact sacrifice outlet.
2. KCI combos
KCI generating
makes it a unique combo piece and this holds true with Salvaging Station. There are many KCI combos and I won't post them all., but these showcase how they work nicely.Foundry makes artifact creatures which means that with KCI, you can sacrifice both the Foundry and the Servo, netting infinite mana, deaths and ETBs. If you substitute Foundry for Origin Spellbomb, it works too, just don't pay the
mana.I wanted to use this one as an example of some of the more complicated lines you can use. Chromatic Sphere can be any noncreature artifact with MV = 1 and Stonecoil Serpent can be any artifact creature that can be cast for 0 mana and has 0 toughness (Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Marketback Walker come to mind).
3. Karn combos
Karn, Silver Golem animates any noncreature aritfact into a creature, thus fulfilling both Station conditions.
You tap Citadel for mana, turn it into a 0/0 with Karn's ability and recur it with the Station. You get infinite deaths and landfall triggers which is quite rare for a colorless combo. Citadel could be any of the Mirodin artifact lands, you just need it to enter untapped.
Like with KCI, your Karn combos can be pretty complicated. Sphere could once again be any one mana noncreature artifact. Ashnod's Altar could be Phyrexian Altar or KCI. Alternatively, you could use Sol Ring or Mana Vault and forgo the need to use a sacrifice outlet that produces mana, returning to Arcbound Ravager and friends.
4. Esper combos
You use mana from the Mox to activate Foundry, sacrificing said Mox. Then sacrifice the token with Altar and that allows you to recur the Mox with Station. Altar could be any free creature sacrifice outlet and Mana Vault, Sol Ring or any of the OG Moxen could work instead of Opal. Or maybe you have a Mox Jasper and a Changeling Outcast or whatever twisted thing you people are into
This one is similar to the Karn/Citadel one from above but requires you to have Seat of the Synod to tap for Blue mana.
That was a lot to get through and I'm sure I missed half of what is possible with this card. What seems obvious is that it should work very well in Riptide style cubes that already run a lot of the infrastructure needed to make the card tick, such as sacrifice outlets, a graveyard theme and trinkets and baubles to recur. You have to be somewhat careful as it's the kind of card that can "accidentally" go off if you have some of the grindy artifact cards like KCI and other free sacrifice outlets, Scrap Trawler and a variety of cheap artifacts.
Salvaging Station also offers you the option of going fair or unfair, high power or low power depending on your goals. I am definitely adding it to my lower power cube and seriously considering it for my higher powered one.
I love trinket-y artifacts and there's a lot of fun directions you can go with them, and you've done a great job outlining them here. Goodness, I really need to pick up a copy of Tezzeret, Cruel Captain.
I like a lot of these loops and synergies, but it feels like a lot to ask drafters to get excited about a 6mv non-creature. Your lower-powered Cube could definitely support it, but the cooler cards for this feel more at home in your explosive list. The danger with a lot of cards here is that my players assume they're for infinite combos and have no utility otherwise. This is why I avoid putting in cards that are frequently associated with combo / infinite loops. Here are some examples that I'd love to play in my current list, but don't want my players to presume they're supposed in the way you'd expect to see them in EDH:
That said, I do love the idea of some eggs variant being doable in Cube. Some other cards that make it really pop include:
This is all to say, if I saw Salvaging Station, I'd mostly assume it's a instant finisher for a very specific deck, and its cost is too great to really make sense with for value. Six mana is just so much!
I like a lot of these loops and synergies, but it feels like a lot to ask drafters to get excited about a 6mv non-creature. Your lower-powered Cube could definitely support it, but the cooler cards for this feel more at home in your explosive list. The danger with a lot of cards here is that my players assume they're for infinite combos and have no utility otherwise. This is why I avoid putting in cards that are frequently associated with combo / infinite loops. Here are some examples that I'd love to play in my current list, but don't want my players to presume they're supposed in the way you'd expect to see them in EDH:
That said, I do love the idea of some eggs variant being doable in Cube. Some other cards that make it really pop include:
This is all to say, if I saw Salvaging Station, I'd mostly assume it's a instant finisher for a very specific deck, and its cost is too great to really make sense with for value. Six mana is just so much!
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You know what might be a cool card to pair with Salvaging Station?
Sure, it has the problem that villain gets to pick whether you recur the card or whether you get to Lava Spike their face, but part of the reason why that's usually a problem is that you're only asking the question once. The Revolution has you ask that question every time you crack one of your cheap-o artifacts, increasing the chance that villain is going to screw up. Sure, the damage will never win the game directly, but that's why you have 22 other nonlands in your deck.
It also has the sweet perk of having neat art and people having to stop and read it because who the hell runs Pia's Revolution?
Sure, it has the problem that villain gets to pick whether you recur the card or whether you get to Lava Spike their face, but part of the reason why that's usually a problem is that you're only asking the question once. The Revolution has you ask that question every time you crack one of your cheap-o artifacts, increasing the chance that villain is going to screw up. Sure, the damage will never win the game directly, but that's why you have 22 other nonlands in your deck.
It also has the sweet perk of having neat art and people having to stop and read it because who the hell runs Pia's Revolution?
That’s a fair point. But even at higher power, cheating it out isn’t unreasonable.
I feel like if it works in that context, it's because you are cheating mana by recurring a Lotus Bloom, rather than chaining some Chromatic Stars.
I think you are right for higher power unfortunately. Lower power though, you have the time to durdle.