Innistrad block, whether we want to admit it or
not, is a tribal block. Werewolves, Vampires,
Zombies, Humans, and Spirits vie for supremacy.
Cavern of Souls is equally at home in any of
these decks, and fairly useful in any of them,
given how almost all of them are mutlicolor
decks. People love tribal decks, and "wild card
tribal" cards like Cavern of Souls will always
find homes because they let people play off-beat
tribes that don't get a lot of support. But
watch out! Cavern of Souls is only useful in a
deck that's A) tribal and B) more than one
color. Your monogreen Elf deck has no use for it
all, unless you're really having problems with
your Elves getting countered. In fact, as long
as there's non-Elf, non-colorless spells in your
deck, Cavern of Souls might be worse than a
basic land in a monocolored deck because it
can't produce colored mana except to play
on-tribe cards. The decks that would really like
this card? Slivers. Allies. Humans (they're in
all five colors!). Just remember, it can't
produce colored mana to pay for non-tribal
spells, and you're bound to have at least a few,
right?
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need cards like
Cavern of Souls. The decks that get the highest
degree of benefit from it are mainly found in
settings which should have functional
self-enforcement and/or participants who didn't
get off on watching non-air/water/thought mages
squirm. Sadly, we don't live in an ideal world,
and the effect of counterspells on competitive
Magic is a concern of design; this is an
effective, if rather blunt, instrument in that
setting. The countless well-meaning casual blue
mages won't be affected as much by this, and the
less-well-meaning minority may take a point from
it and learn the lesson Urabrask did: empathy,
for those who know what it's like to not be able
to affect the other side of the table. If so,
perhaps one day we really will live in a world
where this card is only necessary for five-color
Sliver decks to hit all their colors. One day.
Today's card of the day is Cavern of Souls
which is a land that taps for one or one of any
color for a creature type chosen when the Cavern
comes into play and prevents that spell from
being countered. This is a land that
benefits any tribal deck, particularly those
with multiple colors, and has no real drawback
even if used in a mono-color or partial tribal
theme. The land doesn't come into play
tapped, hinders the always popular control
themes, and opens up a few concerns for
opponents that consider the splashing options
now available. This is a very strong card
and it will see a great deal of play even in
older formats.
For Limited this is a great card to have in
Sealed even if you didn't have two creatures
with the same type in your entire build.
Just having this available to cast a splashed
creature or something using a color of mana you
are lacking is a huge benefit. In Booster
the value is slightly diminished as single color
decks are more likely, but aside from drafting
this based on monetary value alone it still
holds the same potential as in Sealed which
justifies the first pick within the confines of
deck construction.
Welcome to
another great card of the day review here at
Pojo.com! Today we look at Cavern of Souls from
Avacyn Restored. Cavern of Souls is a rare land.
As Cavern of Souls enters the battlefield,
choose a creature type. Cavern of Souls taps to
add one generic mana. Cavern of Souls also taps
to add one mana of any color to your mana pool,
but you can spend this mana only to cast a
creature spell of the chosen type, and that
spell can’t be countered.
Cavern of Souls is the best card from Avacyn Restored. The fact
that your creature spells can no longer be
countered is absolutely ridiculous. The main
threat for even yesterday’s reviewed card,
Avacyn, was still being countered. With a Cavern
of Souls in play, you don’t have to worry about
that. As long as you chose Angel when it entered
the battlefield, no Angle you spend mana on with
the Cavern of Souls can be countered. So many
great creatures have met that fate, game
changer, countered, game change does not happen.
The Cavern changes all of that. Definitely a
great card, and the best part is if you put
multiple copies in your deck, you can chose
different creature types for each and try and
secure all the creature spells in your deck.
