Would you barter Lotus Petal for Mana Vault?

[Gheizen64]

Of the two cards, mana vault seems the much more interesting to me. It enable more cards compared to petal, as, for example, higher cmc ones making artifact ramp decks like legend MUD more viable, whereas petal does not.

As for current decks, vault seems comparable in storm. I am not a storm player but those looks like the differences to me:

- vault is better for T2 AdN for sure (significant)
- vault is worse flipped off AdN because of the 1 damage and the inability to be a starter mana source when you flip tons of cards. This seems actually huge as it means that you always need to start an AdN with available B and or U sources to continue chaining rituals/cantrips (significant)
- vault don't fuel threshold (minor)
- vault doesn't fix your mana in the early turns, which is a big deal to cast your cantrips and spells in general (significant)

It make decks like Show and tell, Oops and Belcher all significantly worse by:

- not allowing Show and Tell T1 (well technically you could... with double vault + chromatic star or smth)
- not being a starter in landless combo lists, aka nuke them out from the game (a net gain if you ask me, those decks are bad anyway and basically are completely roll dependent and you always lose the roll if you aren't blue)

It's not directly playable in eldrazi aggro lists (and stompy in general) imho because:

- anti-sinergy with chalice at 1
- you have issues untapping it, making it not exactly what stompy want, which is consistent mana generation over turns to drop threats consistently (in this sense, it's a much better card in all-in red where you need to resolve just 1 threat)

It's a really good card in all-in red which is T2 at best, essentially being a direct upgrade to seething song (and probably seething song 5-8).


But the biggest difference would be what vault enable in non-combo lists. Take decks like big eldrazis. Some of those lists play cabal monolith for example. Vault is a massive upgrade and most big artifact lists would start with 4 vault 4 monolith 4 key. Vault make T2 OG tezzeret reasonably easy or T3 Karn for example. It's not an autoinclude in every stompy or eldrazi lists because of the attrition with chalice for example and due to the fact that lots of those decks often want permanent mana sources rather than temporary ones. It would make Sneak attack a significantly better card (which i'm not a huge fan of, but making sneak better and Show and Tell worse is a reasonable outcome for me). It allow for more counterplay compared to petal by costing mana and being a permanent (petal being essentially a ritual).

For me, it would be a no-brainer. Vault is a much more iconic (still got 4 of my Black bordered italian revised edition) and overall interesting (in term of deckbuilding) card for the format. If we want fast mana, we should at least have the more interesting fast mana. The best fast mana! It's great, believe me.

[mistercakes]

I think omniscience would just be the best deck. With 4 mana vault you could run 4 dream halls.

This was the old plan after Academy was banned in standard many years ago, and it was quite powerful.

I'm sure that nothing good would come out of unbanning mana vault.

Banning lotus petal on the other hand would be interesting, but I do enjoy it as a card.

[Ronald Deuce]

[Re: Mana Vault in Storm]

I'm no expert, but I've found that managing colored mana is at least as important as building up large amounts of mana in Storm. I don't think the deck has problems generating mana, and though generating mana quickly is important, I don't think Vault does what the deck wants as well as Lotus Petal does. Not needing to commit swamps/islands/mountains to get a source for universal mana is pretty big.

I do, however, really like Mana Vault. I think it would push a lot of decks really far, though it'd almost definitely break the format in numbers greater than a singleton.

[Zllig]

I really don't want to play against turn 2 Reality Smashers ever so no, but the part of me that plays a deck with 4 OG Daretti obviously wants Mana Vault over anything.

[Gheizen64]

I really don't want to play against turn 2 Reality Smashers ever so no, but the part of me that plays a deck with 4 OG Daretti obviously wants Mana Vault over anything.

Turn 2 smasher isn't really what you'd want to play with vault imho. It get sworded and then you have a tapped vault that deal 1 damage to you each turn and do nothing else for the rest of the game and you're probably not casting another Smasher for at least 4-5 turns until you draw many more lands.

Artifact lists with much bigger threats seems better at abusing vault (with key especially), and can play things that don't fold to a T2 stp, like Ugin, Karn, or an Eldrazi titan. Something like this:

4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
3 All Is Dust
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Grim Monolith
1 Thran Dynamo
3 Trinisphere
4 Voltaic Key
4 Mana Vault

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Cloudpost
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Eye of Ugin
4 Glimmerpost
3 City of Traitors
2 Vesuva
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Seems yuicy. 4 CotV + 8 1 cmc cards is a bit annoying, but this deck being able to consistently chalice for 2 or 3 make it worth it anyway imho.


I think omniscience would just be the best deck. With 4 mana vault you could run 4 dream halls.

This was the old plan after Academy was banned in standard many years ago, and it was quite powerful.

I'm sure that nothing good would come out of unbanning mana vault.

Banning lotus petal on the other hand would be interesting, but I do enjoy it as a card.

T2 dream halls into omniscience seems just medium to me. It's significantly worse than show and telling it, for one. It let you open to counters (dream hall is simmetrical so even tapped out spell pierces etc works) and it's a much bigger mana investment that can turn into a tempo blowout. A T1 Vault into T2 something also leave you open to your opponent killing vault before you untap, like AD on the draw.

[Noctalor]

We dont really need mana vault, it stupidly good.
But still, I would love to run my 4 paradox engine mud combo :tongue:

And i personally like what lotus petal does to the format, it's a strong card, but not even that good.

[mistercakes]

Just try a sample list. Dream halls are also show and tell 5-8, not in leiu of it.

Anyway, this is a stupid conversation, as mana vault is busted.

[Dice_Box]

As a person who loves Stax, yes. As a person who loves playing Legacy, no.

[Megadeus]

Turn 1 Trinispheres consistently sounds miserable

[Gheizen64]

Turn 1 Trinispheres consistently sounds miserable

You can already do that with dark ritual. The point is that you are then doing nothing for a long time like your opponent while taking damage from vault.

[rufus]

Vault is a stronger card than petal by a significant margin, and, at the same time, enables a narrower range of decks. I don't think people want a meta of turbo Zvi vs stax. Petal is better for the format.

[Megadeus]

You can already do that with dark ritual. The point is that you are then doing nothing for a long time like your opponent while taking damage from vault.

Except Mana Vault sticks around to get untapped for mana later and allows you to play more Sol Lands. Whereas ritual turn 1 you lose the ritual and then you need two more land drops to start casting spells

[Dice_Box]

Vault is handy with Key and Smokestack. The only advantage I see of a deck built like this is that Chalice moves to the sideboard. The rest of the main will be Sphere, 3ball and other lock pieces.

Believe me, I want this. It's a dream for me because of how I enjoy playing. But a dream to me is a nightmare on the meta. If this is unbanned, 3ball and Lodestone have to go in the same announcement.

[rufus]

Except Mana Vault sticks around to get untapped for mana later and allows you to play more Sol Lands. Whereas ritual turn 1 you lose the ritual and then you need two more land drops to start casting spells

Mana vault banks mana, but I think the 'untap value' is somewhat marginal.

TBH, I think stuff like turn 1 Thought-Knot Seer and turn 2 Dream Halls, Karn Liberated, or Oblivion Sower would be more of an issue than turn 1 3-sphere.

[maharis]

As someone who has had their face kicked in by that big eldrazi deck that runs Grim Monolith and Thran Dynamo.... no. Tomb, Vault, TKS/LSG turn 1 sounds like misery. They won't care about getting pinged a couple turns when you are taking 4 to the face and can't do anything.


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[niv]

To be honest, I don't think Lotus Petal and Mana Vault are really comparable in such an exchange, seeing as:
Petal makes colored mana and doesn't stick around
Mana Vault makes 3x as much colorless mana and sticks around to be abused by anything that untaps artifacts.

They're both 'fast mana', but have rather different uses.

I don't like the idea of a potential 4 mana off a sol land in a deck like Eldrazi, or just doing something dumb like powering out a raw omnicience/dream halls extremely early. Furthermore, a deck would almost have to be built specially to abuse the card, it's less of a shoe-in for any deck that wants fast mana since it's not colored.

For what it's worth, it would be a nerf to storm in my opinion since the colored mana off petal is often extremely relevant, and usually just better than having +2 colorless mana: You can't cast your rituals with just colorless mana.

[emidln]

Only because it would let me take a nice vacation by selling the Beta Mana Vault I own. I would probably enjoy playing 4 Dream Halls in my Omni deck again too.