This is one of those times that I'm really sorry
that Magic's cards aren't bigger, or that there
was at least a way and a venue to regularly view
art at its original size. You almost can't see
that the wall hangings and chandeliers in this
cathedral are made entirely of swords, and
that's a little sad if you ask me. This is
undeniably a good card - exalted is a mechanic
that can dominate combat outright, and there are
many decks that simply can't deal with the
Cathedral once it's in play - but it doesn't
automatically fit in every deck. The colorless
mana and coming into play tapped will be a
turn-off for some decks, such as anything
heavily Bant-themed. The new-style black-white
exalted decks, though, or just about anything in
a limited format, will eat this up.
Today's card of the day is Cathedral of War
which comes into play tapped, taps for one, and
has Exalted. This is a very nice card for
the Black/White style of Exalted deck, though it
needs a deck with a carefully crafted mana
requirement to minimize the risk of it slowing
down your tempo. Three mana cards with two
or more colored mana symbols make this a
problematic choice and a slightly higher ratio
of one and two mana cards is recommended to
balance the first few turns out.
Overall this being a relatively free and
difficult to remove source of Exalted is worth
considering, but just adding it to a deck might
not produce the best results.
For Limited this should not be considered a land
as much as an Exalted source and damage boost to
Exalted or non-Exalted themes. In Sealed there
should be little reason to not include this in
any deck while maintaining a balanced mana pool
for whatever colors are being used. In
Booster this is a good first draw that can be
played alongside any colors drafted in later
picks and a nice starting point for an Exalted
theme.
