Cascading Cataracts MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 5 setsSee all
RarityRare
TypeLand
Abilities Indestructible

Key Takeaways

  1. Cascading Cataracts aids in landfall strategies and increases multi-color deck efficiency.
  2. Its five-color mana ability accelerates casting potent spells but demands high mana.
  3. Despite being costly and color-specific, its indestructibility makes it reliable and versatile.

Text of card

Indestructible : Add to your mana pool. , : Add five mana in any combination of colors to your mana pool.

"The power that flows here cannot be denied. But where is the source?" —Nissa Revane


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Cascading Cataracts doesn’t directly offer card draw, but as a land, it can be a vital component in strategies that capitalize on landfall triggers or other land-related synergies. Thus, it supports the subtle card advantage by enabling more potent plays.

Resource Acceleration: This indestructible land becomes instrumental in ramping up your mana in the later stages of the game. By investing five mana of any color, you can generate a diverse spread of WUBRG (White, Blue, Black, Red, Green), effectively accelerating your access to color-intensive spells and enabling multicolor decks to flourish.

Instant Speed: While Cascading Cataracts’ activation is not at instant speed itself, the mana it provides can be crucial for instant-speed interactions. It ensures you have the right mana colors available when you need them to disrupt opponents’ strategies or to protect your board during their turn. This versatility adds to your tactical options, becoming a silent yet powerful enabler for instant-speed plays.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Cascading Cataracts ensures any color mana production, it requires an investment of five mana before you can activate its ability, which could force players to discard other potential plays from their hand due to mana constraints.

Specific Mana Cost: Despite being able to generate five mana of any combination, Cascading Cataracts itself demands a strict colorless mana to activate. This specificity may not synergize well with decks that do not efficiently generate colorless mana.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: The card’s activation cost is somewhat steep, considering that it only converts existing mana resources rather than provide additional mana. In a fast-paced game, the tempo lost by spending five mana just to adapt your mana pool could be a significant setback.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Cascading Cataracts stands out with its ability to provide mana of any color without any downside. Compatible with a wide variety of decks, it’s especially effective in multicolored decks that need a reliable mana base to cast diverse spells.

Combo Potential: This land synergizes well with strategies that revolve around landfall abilities or those that capitalize on untapping and tapping land cards. Its indestructibility also offers excellent combo potential with cards that otherwise sacrifice lands for greater effects.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where land destruction strategies are prevalent, the resilience of Cascading Cataracts can secure your mana supply under pressure. Additionally, its relevance grows in formats that value long games and complex board states where mana diversity is key.


How to beat

Cascading Cataracts is a unique land card in MTG, prized for its ability to provide indestructible mana fixing. Unlike many other lands, Cascading Cataracts can withstand destruction effects that typically set back a player’s mana base. It’s a card you often see in decks that demand a variety of colors or need to protect their lands from harmful spells.

To effectively counteract the advantages Cascading Cataracts brings to the table, consider utilizing land-specific disruption that doesn’t rely on destruction. Cards like Blood Moon or Containment Priest can negate the benefits provided by Cascading Cataracts, as they change the rules of the game instead of trying to remove the indestructible card itself. Strategies that limit a player’s ability to use their mana or lands, such as land bounce effects or taxing their available resources, can also be effective approaches to mitigate the strength of Cascading Cataracts in their setup.

Ultimately, defeating a strategist using Cascading Cataracts requires a combination of clever deck building and anticipating how to disrupt their strategy without relying on conventional land destruction tactics in your game plan.


Cards like Cascading Cataracts

Cascading Cataracts stands out as an indestructible land in Magic: The Gathering, offering a unique mana-fixing ability. A card that can be compared to it is Crystal Quarry. Both lands allow a player to spend mana to generate five mana of different colors, but Crystal Quarry lacks the indestructibility that protects Cascading Cataracts from destruction effects. Another peer in this space is Exotic Orchard, which generates mana based on the colors that an opponent’s lands can produce. Though useful, it doesn’t guarantee the full spectrum of colors in one go.

Reflecting on the utility of lands like Command Tower and Reflecting Pool, they too provide a diverse mana base, but they depend on other aspects of the player’s land layout or the opponent’s mana capabilities. Whereas with Cascading Cataracts, the control lies squarely with the player, irrespective of other conditions. Command Tower matches the colors of your commander in EDH format, and Reflecting Pool mirrors the capabilities of lands you control, yet neither offers the complete freedom to generate five different colors instantly.

When evaluating these options, Cascading Cataracts shines due to its resilience and the certainty of mana fixing, a crucial ability for multicolor decks aiming to execute high-cost spells seamlessly.

Crystal Quarry - MTG Card versions
Exotic Orchard - MTG Card versions
Command Tower - MTG Card versions
Reflecting Pool - MTG Card versions
Crystal Quarry - Odyssey (ODY)
Exotic Orchard - Conflux (CON)
Command Tower - Commander 2011 (CMD)
Reflecting Pool - Tempest (TMP)

Cards similar to Cascading Cataracts by color, type and mana cost

Cathedral of Serra - MTG Card versions
Mishra's Factory - MTG Card versions
Bad River - MTG Card versions
Griffin Canyon - MTG Card versions
Ice Floe - MTG Card versions
Ghost Town - MTG Card versions
Urza's Mine - MTG Card versions
Hall of Tagsin - MTG Card versions
City of Brass - MTG Card versions
Bloodstained Mire - MTG Card versions
Zoetic Cavern - MTG Card versions
Grixis Panorama - MTG Card versions
Rupture Spire - MTG Card versions
Terramorphic Expanse - MTG Card versions
Tectonic Edge - MTG Card versions
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - MTG Card versions
Springjack Pasture - MTG Card versions
Buried Ruin - MTG Card versions
Wasteland - MTG Card versions
Eldrazi Temple - MTG Card versions
Cathedral of Serra - Legends (LEG)
Mishra's Factory - Dominaria Remastered (DMR)
Bad River - Mirage (MIR)
Griffin Canyon - Visions (VIS)
Ice Floe - Fifth Edition (5ED)
Ghost Town - Tempest (TMP)
Urza's Mine - Masters Edition IV (ME4)
Hall of Tagsin - Magic Online Promos (PRM)
City of Brass - World Championship Decks 2002 (WC02)
Bloodstained Mire - World Championship Decks 2003 (WC03)
Zoetic Cavern - Future Sight (FUT)
Grixis Panorama - Commander 2013 (C13)
Rupture Spire - Magic Online Theme Decks (TD0)
Terramorphic Expanse - Commander 2018 (C18)
Tectonic Edge - Zendikar Expeditions (EXP)
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - Theros (THS)
Springjack Pasture - Commander 2013 (C13)
Buried Ruin - Commander 2014 (C14)
Wasteland - Zendikar Rising Expeditions (ZNE)
Eldrazi Temple - Rise of the Eldrazi (ROE)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Cascading Cataracts MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and Amonkhet, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Cascading Cataracts and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Cascading Cataracts Magic the Gathering card was released in 5 different sets between 2017-04-28 and 2022-09-09. Illustrated by 2 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 884122015normalblackPaul Scott Canavan
22017-04-28AmonkhetAKH 2402015normalblackNoah Bradley
32017-04-29Amonkhet PromosPAKH 240s2015normalblackNoah Bradley
42020-08-13Amonkhet RemasteredAKR 2852015normalblackPaul Scott Canavan
52022-09-09Dominaria United CommanderDMC 2022015normalblackPaul Scott Canavan

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Cascading Cataracts has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

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