MTG Salvation

Champion of Stray Souls.

A decent looking reanimation card.

I'm not exactly sold due to the high mana cost but I think it could be fun dredging some big stuff into your graveyard.

Sack one creature, reanimate Abhorrent Overlord, get some more tokens to sack and keep digging?

At least he doesn't get hit with Doom Blade

great art on a worthless mythic. EDH possibly viable but really, looking at the other color mythics, are we really going back to unplayable black, Wizards?

1. Get some mana dorks (Voyaging Satyr, Sylvan Caryatid, Arbor Elf) to ramp
2. Dump fatties in the yard, possibly including this guy (Grisly Salvage and Commune with the Gods)
2a. Reanimate this guy (Rescue from the Underworld, Obzedat's Aid)
3. Reanimate fatties by sacrificing mana dorks.
4. Profit

Also, bonus points for looping Angel of Serenity with it.

Edit: I don't see it than more as a one or two off in such a deck though.... manacost and all

Mana cost of the second ability is needlessly 7cmc. It's not even to your hand, it's to your top lib. I think someone was just thinking "hey, what if instead of 2BB, we add 3 more!" Spare me your limited woes. It's already mythic.

Will never be played in Standard, and doubtful in Commander.

It's just too much mana and your guy has to survive a turn to be "good", let alone have friends to sacrifice.

$2 Mythic right there.

Quote from TwinSais

Mana cost of the second ability is needlessly 7cmc. It's not even to your hand, it's to your top lib. I think someone was just thinking "hey, what if instead of 2BB, we add 3 more!" Spare me your limited woes. It's already mythic.

If it didn't say "Turn all your mana dorks into beats" I would agree with you. But a mass recursion fest like this... yeah, I don't have a problem with that seven to recur it.

This feels best at home with creatures that generate tokens when they ETB. So put this out alongside Abhorrent Overlord, Ogre Slumlord, and Xanthrid Necromancer in Mono-B. Or Evangel of Heliod, Trostani's Summoner, and Seller of Songbirds if you decide to go WBG.

For anyone wondering about how relevant this card is in Commander, please imagine the following scenario:

You cast him at 6 mana.
He dies to anything really.
Next turn you revive him.
Next turn you cast him.
Next turn you activate him.

How bad do your opponents' decks have to be for that to be a viable strategy? The answer may surprise you!

Anyone calling this a Commander staple is likely facing kids who scraped their 100 together with Craw Wurms and Bottle Gnomes.

i think he is very playable on a mono black devotion with 3-4 nykthos. especialy with the new infest thing. he is also have a good synergy with abhorrent overlord. i believe the mono b devotion can have 1 or 2. time will tell until the whole set is revealed.

Very cool, which is why I am disappointed to see that all of the numbers on this guy are too high. Seems like you could drop a mana off of all 3 costs (cmc and both abilities) and he would STILL be on the slow side.

Quote from dryad

i think he is very playable on a mono black devotion with 3-4 nykthos. especialy with the new infest thing. he is also have a good synergy with abhorrent overlord. i believe the mono b devotion can have 1 or 2. time will tell until the whole set is revealed.

This thing is Worthless...let me count the standard ways...
1. Scavenging Ooze
2. Deathrite Shaman
3. Underworld Cerebus
etc, etc.
All of those come down sooner and all hose his ability. Ooze and Shaman see main deck use often enough. Hell...cerebus destroys the whole theme since when Cerebus dies those fatties end up in your hand where you cant cast them. What a waste of a mythic spot.

I liked him as an EDH piece at first, but what deck has tokens in play to sacrifice, and creatures worth reanimating in the grave? Maybe a Prossh deck with death triggers, but even then, he's one less mana than Debtors Knell, one less than Sheoldred...an awful lot of work and things to go right for a mass reanimation, and the second ability is completely pointless and unattractive.

Nice art, jankish card.

Quote from wicked93gs

This thing is Worthless...let me count the standard ways...
1. Scavenging Ooze
2. Deathrite Shaman
3. Underworld Cerebus
etc, etc.
All of those come down sooner and all hose his ability. Ooze and Shaman see main deck use often enough. Hell...cerebus destroys the whole theme since when Cerebus dies those fatties end up in your hand where you cant cast them. What a waste of a mythic spot.

What world do you live in that Shaman sees Standard "main deck use often enough"? Can you name one tier 1 deck that plays even a single copy in its 75? Same question for the Cerebus. Same question for your etc, etcs.

The card is horrendous but not the reasons that you're providing lol...

Quote from wicked93gs

This thing is Worthless...let me count the standard ways...
1. Scavenging Ooze
2. Deathrite Shaman
3. Underworld Cerebus

1. Sees a little bit, but not major play.
2. Sees no play
3. Sees no play

Wasting a mythic slot, you're doing it right.

Quote from ilovesaprolings

maybe not a staple, but i'll try that in my Ghave and Karador decks. he is costly and slow, but can reanimate a lot of creatures multiple times. no other cards can do the same thing this card does. so i'll try it. and casting that after a martial coup is win

Is Living Death just not in your deck? You really think that the effect is unique?

It's perhaps not the best card, but I'll have to try it out in my Jarad dredge EDH. It's also a 6 drop for my Birthing Pod chain, which the deck seems to be lacking a bit. Anyways, it's not really playable in Standard, in my opinion.

Well, in the previous Standard reanimator was good because Unburial Rites milled itself alongside your targets. Maybe this is the current Standard version of that...albeit 600 turns slower.

I mean, he's a 4/4 that can indefinitely return itself from the dead, but the abilities seem to cost too much.

This would be cool in INN-RtR Std when we had Junk rites stomping around. Exchanging tusk for another tusk in yard each turn would be so much fun for opponent.

May also be nice SB card in those grindy matchups like UW elixir bore-you-to-death deck.

This goes straight into my Teysa, Orzhov Scion EDH deck, which is full of tokens and ETB effects. I have no doubt about it, and I don't even care about what to take, this has to be in. But yeah, it won't see play in any other format.

Idk, in Modern you have Heartless Summoning and Training Grounds. Some kind of UB reanimator with Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur? There's better set ups, but this guy is one of a kind.

I don't care how bad it is, this is my favorite card in the set and I want 4. This is a prime example of one of those terribad POS cards that everyone thinks sucks and then something gets printed that makes you rethink your whole life and the existence of the universe. And that art... omg. I want it more than a pickle right now.

This is a commander gift for the Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. Sack those Kobolds to get your stuff back from wrath effects!

Stray Souls seems like a wasted spot for Standard sure, but it can be viable as early as turn four or five with Nyk or sooner with mana dorks.

The problem is that to truly utilize this, you'll have to have creatures to sac and unless you want to bring in the harpy Demon (Yes I dubbed him that), he really doesn't get much love.

I see a $3 mythic. If nothing else, an ok Limited pick mid round and a possible engine for Commanders that can play with these abilities. Other than that, binder dust.

Such great art on a crappy card. Wish it was more reasonable with casting cost or not in the mythic slot. They could have at least made it legendary or something, that way it would have had some value. Unless there's really good reanimation support in the next two years this won't see play at all. Superstar in casual tho.

Wow the artwork is pretty epic. Love it!

Not sure where this will see much play. The abilities are all pretty expensive to use.