MTG Salvation

Collective Blessing

The card requires you to build around it in a big way, but when it catches your opponent out it really catches them out.

This card reminds of prime speaker zegana a lot. Less upside when it resolves and you have a creature in play, but also less downside when you have an empty board or are facing a removal-heavy deck. You can actually cast this after being wiped by verdict/terminus and take over the game, which is a huge weakness in zegana. Only being 1 colour is good as well.

People saying he is unplayable are definately going too far, but he's certainly going to need a specific type of deck to come together in order to be playable (a very similar one to zegana, funnily enough; 24+ creatures and at least half a dozen ramp effects). If standard elves ever becomes a thing, I like having this type of effect in the sideboard.

I think people are well off the mark with post-rotation predictions. Firstly we just don't have enough information to say anything concrete. Secondly, the two most format-defining (and archetype-creating) cards in RTR block are burning-tree emissary and sphinx's revelation. They tell you what you have to do, namely beat turn 4 kill aggro decks and have some plan against slow control decks.

Voice is good against both of those cards and the decks that they spawn; it will be a force in standard for a long time. If anything, the current lack of control makes it a little weaker than you might expect it to be.

Quote from NoHeavenNoHell

Considering ratchet bomb is getting reprinted in M14, and intangible virtue is going away, I think you can pretty much kiss token decks goodbye. Run 'em while you can.

If no one is playing the tokens decks in, say, October, why are people running ratchet bomb? Serious question.

I like it in Jund aggro. BTE-castable, and it works moderately well with something like falkenrath aristocrat.

The card is flexible and strong enough that I could see it helping to spawn something entirely new though (Junk midrange perhaps?).

Seems like a really really strong card. Very efficient creature and a powerful hate bear to boot.

On a more offbeat note, I also like that it adds to what I think could become a critical mass of +1/+1 counter effects. We have quite a few cards that care about that now (renegade krasis, bred for the hunt, exava, rakdos blood witch, zameck guildmage).

Quote from veritoanimus

Considering that Desecration Demon - a 6/6 flying for 4 with a lesser drawback - doesn't see play in standard, Alms beast is unplayable. What's more, Desecration Demon is in the same block and is better in every way, so there's no way that Alms beast would ever see play. There is a chance for Desecration Demon, He's basically an Abyssal Persecutor, but you give up trample to save yourself having to spend a spell killing him. Demon's mana is also less restrictive.

If you look at the post chain I was responding to, we were dealing with whether a vanilla 6/6 for 4 (colours unspecified) would be unplayable. As I said, I'm think that's taking it a bit far, but I don't think such a card would be that powerful.

I wasn't talking about alms beast, which is most certainly not vanilla and is also colour-restrictive.

Quote from Conn

Did you seriously just say a 4CMC 6/6 WITHOUT a drawback is unplayable? Go home sir, you're drunk.

'Unplayable' might be taking it a bit far, but sirgog is right that a vanilla 6/6 for 4 is just not sufficiently high above the curve to be powerful right now. I'd also take deadbridge goliath over a random 6/6 in my deck any day. And the goliath doesn't see any play.

Better question; When is it appropriate to mainphase grisly salvage?

Broadly, two categories:

1. When the cards you see may impact your plays for the turn.

This includes land sequencing; say its turn 3 and you do have a sunpetal grove, but no fourth land. Casting the salvage may well find you a shockland and then you play it immediately, saving you 2 life on the alternative if you need four lands untapped next turn.

2. When you don't want it countered.

As seen in the video. It's worth noting that if you do want it countered, this argument reverses itself. Say the Junk Rites player in the video had a t3 liliana of the veil follow-up (unlikely I know, but it makes the point well). Then baiting the negate might just outright win the game.

Apart from those, you may as well bluff one of the charms or abrupt decay. And sometimes you'll actually have those cards!

Angel of serenity isn't actually that great in a control deck with few/no other creatures, simply because your opponents will finally get to use that dreadbore they've been sitting on for the whole game.

This, of course, is why esper uses nephalia drownyard or PWs as its win condition, not AoS. These finishers are the correct comparision to aetherling.

I would add:

• Far // Away
  
• Bred for the Hunt
  
• Turn // Burn
  
• Deputy of Acquittals
  
• Lavinia of the Tenth
  
• Sin Collector
  
• Unflinching Courage
  
• Ready // Willing
  
• Warped Physique

and remove:

• Flesh // Blood
  
• Gaze of Granite
  
• Savageborn Hydra
  
• Skylasher

A lot of the cards I would add are cards that I think are not quite right at the moment or don't have a deck, but could easily get one at some point in the next year and a half and I'd rather buy them while they are dirt cheap.

Quote from Zanet

In my experience, ramp with EITHER dorks or Farseek makes Junk tokens more viable. The mana fix is unnecessary but the act of ramping makes the deck far more viable. I used to run it without any ramp and got destroyed by mirrors that ran ramp.

In addition, rancor significantly makes tokens more deadly.

That aside, (perhaps it is because my local meta is overcrowded with boardwipes) I do not over extend even in tokens and keeping a flashback lingering souls and THEN dropping VoR with rancor makes the play much more deadly. If they respond to rancor, I lose rancor and VoR but get 2 tokens that I can boost using the lingering souls.

I feel like rancor is working along the right lines if you want to maximise the power of this card. There are a good number of decent effects/cards that mostly suffer from being blown out by instant speed removal, e.g. rancor, silverblade paladin, sublime archangel, wolfir silverhart, domri rade fight ability. VoR is in the right colours to support these cards, and ignoring (say) a silverblade paladin until your turn could be very painful.

That said, the power level is high enough that I don't think you need to build around it to make it viable; it'll just naturally fit in a bunch of decks' maindecks and sideboards as a value 2-drop.

Quote from Sabre

Cavern wasn't in the same block as Snapcaster. Moreover, M13 - which was long before Cavern's AVR - had already an answer for Delver (Thragtusk).

You might want to check those dates/blocks again....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avacyn_Restored

Order is

Innistrad <----Delver of Secrets, Snapcaster Mage
Dark Ascension
Avacyn Restored <----Cavern of Souls
M13
RTR

That said, there's nothing stopping wizards deciding to print an answer to delver/snapcaster mage before releasing innistrad. It doesn't take a genius to work out those are powerful cards that should be kept in check.

Underworld Connections seems better as a sideboard card in the really slow match-ups for the reasons DarkRitual has already given. But I could see this being an interesting 1 or 2-of MD, since drawing underworld connections in any match where your life total is under significant pressure sucks.

Of course, if it's naya blitz you are up against, having a 6-drop sucks too, but say it's something like Naya Midrange or the Aristocrats; decks which are definitely the aggro deck in the match-up but kill you relatively slowly. Then I think the chant outperforms underworld connections.

Quote from endgame1331

It's not that you can't run them, it's that they're more limited in number. Arbor Elf need's about 12 potential targets to reach standard consistency. When you reach out for that fourth color, it get's much more difficult to keep 12 forests and a balanced base which leaves Avacyn's Pilgrim as the only fast dork that can retain consistency at 4+ colors, and farseek would be the preferred option after that. Arbor looses targets and Deathrite can be to slow. Farseek, even though it's a turn 2-3 play, will also fix your mana in addition to ramp.

The problem is that this doesn't accelerate out plan at all and is a lot slower then running a bunch of dorks. Shouldn't Grisly Salvage and Faithless Looting be enough to find the mana we need?

Why does it get more difficult to reach 12 forests? Rather than running 4 Overgrown Tomb, 4 Temple Garden, and 4 forest as in a standard build, you run 4 Overgrown Tomb, 4 Temple Garden and 4 Breeding Pool/Stomping Ground.

You do lose some tempo/life from running the extra dual lands, but that's going to happen when you go to 4 colours however you do it.