MTG Salvation

While weeding through a binder for parts to shamble together a throw-back deck I ran across an old pet card Fortune Thief, and it got me thinking.

There are multiple cards that can somehow prevent you from loosing the game and create an extra hurdle for your opponents to work around. Some of these cards (like angel's grace) are more likely some combo part (goes with Ad Nauseam). But most are seemingly awkward inclusions that don't actually help a deck win.

Somewhat related, one of my closer friends has a Platinum Angel in one of his artifact-based decks, and a few weeks ago he trolled me pretty hard with when I was playing a custom storm deck that had zero opponent interaction. I was easily able to produce hundreds of goblin tokens and use Purphoros, God of the Forge to lower him to excessively negative life-totals, but my deck has zero ways to kill artifacts or creatures.

Obviously my deck failed because of the way I built it, but I always wonder why he runs the angel when it could be just about any other threat. That random situation doesn't come up very often. In fact I really can't recall any previous game against him where the angel made a large impact.

I myself have a semi-favoritism for Fortune Thief from memories with her from years ago. She is a neat time-spiral throwback to ali from cairo, and I recall playing with him when I first started playing the game. 6+ years ago it was funny to morph her out and throw a darksteel plate on her. But times change, players improve, and removal/answers get better. A 0/1 indestructible won't stop a combo deck that doesn't care about damage, and she doesn't stop commander damage accumulation.

I'm still going to toss her in the deck for nostalgia. I know I stopped playing her before Craterhoof Behemoth was released, so hopefully I can get a fun flip off of some tooth-n-hoof attempt.


Does anyone else run her, or have any experience with similar cards? What makes you want to play these effects? Is it meta specific, favoritism, nostalgia, something else?

Quote from Macabre »

Does anyone else run her, or have any experience with similar cards? What makes you want to play these effects? Is it meta specific, favoritism, nostalgia, something else?

It has to be meta-specific. The Thief can stop TNN-Hoof, but it can't do anything against TNN-Mike-Trike (well to be fair though, neither does Platinum Angel). It also can't stop other winning combinations (that don't touch your life total), which the Angel does better. My meta does have those situations often enough that I didn't even consider the Thief in my partially-Morph Animar deck, simply because it would simply do nothing.

Even in metas that it can fare better in, it's still a rather situational ability, so it's best to be able to utilize it for its other properties, like your friend runs Platinum Angel (you said it was an artifact-based deck, so I'm pretty sure your friend has alternative uses for the Angel simply by being an Artifact). For the Thief it's pretty much just Morph though, which means you need to hide it in a sea of other Morphs to increase mystery and efficiency of each of them.

My first encounter with these sort of cards was withWorship. It was my second deck I ever made that ran Worship, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Statis, and other lockdown cards to "protect me from everything". It didn't, because Stormscape Apprentice had just been printed and was easily accessible (that and I was still learning).
I'm currently running Ali from Cairo in a group-hug/Anarchy/chaos deck. It's made with no real win condition, but I utilize him with Guard Gomazoa due to the fact that some players like to target me solely because I'm not a threat. Ali is there to complicate their troll-quest, mostly because they would have to waste removal that is much better used... anywhere else (also Ali is there as a great lesson for the newer members of the group to remind them to play removal).
SPEAKING OF REMOVAL, the first thing I noticed about Platinum Angel was that it dies to a Flametongue Kavu...if you are doing goblins...why not Goblin Grenade? My best recommendation for red artifact destruction (aside from the simplistic Smelt) is Smash to Smithereens.
SPEAKING OF PLATINUM: Platinum Emperion was too powerful for my meta, but doesn't have what it takes to be in Reanimator. Platinum Angel is the smallest reanimation target I have in my reanimator deck, but it serves as a sort of catch all. My reanimator deck is a toolbox, P.A. fills in the rest of the gaps.

So my Worship deck was WUB. The blue was for Statis and Counterspell, because even back then, I knew I would have to protect my key pieces. So I fully recommend you run some blue control with Fortune Thief like Stifle and C.S. or at least shunt and the likes. Lightning Greaves and Darksteel Plate are surefire ways to protect your investment.

I love Elderscale Wurm but it helps that he's a 7/7 rather than an 0/1.

0/1 is kinda weak but it is cute. I would love to see somone try to just hit you in the gace for 100000000000000 and you morph that face up.

All these cards above are making me wonder if a naya "can't lose" deck would be a possible deck. Just play all of these effects, phyrexian unlife, Form of the Dragon, etc.

Seems really tacky, but I feel like it would be frustrating to play against.

Quote from Dunharrow »

All these cards above are making me wonder if a naya "can't lose" deck would be a possible deck. Just play all of these effects, phyrexian unlife, Form of the Dragon, etc.

Seems really tacky, but I feel like it would be frustrating to play against.

At least some of its parts double as win conditions too. You could just beat down with Platinum Angel and Elderscale Wurm or slowly burn out the board with Form of the Dragon. Maybe do some kind of Voltron thing as a back up plan with Uril or something like that. I think it seems like a really cool take on pillow fort strategies.

Quote from herenorthere »

Quote from Dunharrow »

All these cards above are making me wonder if a naya "can't lose" deck would be a possible deck. Just play all of these effects, phyrexian unlife, Form of the Dragon, etc.

Seems really tacky, but I feel like it would be frustrating to play against.

At least some of its parts double as win conditions too. You could just beat down with Platinum Angel and Elderscale Wurm or slowly burn out the board with Form of the Dragon. Maybe do some kind of Voltron thing as a back up plan with Uril or something like that. I think it seems like a really cool take on pillow fort strategies.

I feel like Marath is the most controlling Naya general.
This is a dumb idea and I like it.

Quote from Macabre »

my deck has zero ways to kill artifacts or creatures.

Well that seems foolish, and I hope you've remedied the situation, now.

My only deck that runs any sort of "can't lose" card is my Wort, the Raidmother deck, which has Platinum Angel, Platinum Emperion, and Lich's Mirror. The aim of the deck is to cast and fork Goblin Game as many times as possible (or failing that, do the same to Endless Swarm); the two Platinum creatures let me cheat on the Game, and the Mirror gives me an extra 20 life to work with.

I really love this card, but it's awfully fragile, and won't actually save you from some things (i.e. Exsanguinate).

I run it in Heartless Hidetsugu to save myself from damage.

Cheers!

I've used Ali from Cairo with Darksteel Plate to good effect in the past. A morph version is very hand for the surprise factor.

I think some sort of brew with Platinum Angel, Elderscale Wurm, Fortune Thief and Platinum Emperion could be done, that tries to do large amounts of damage to all players.

But it is a casual card as you walk that fine line that the moment one of these things gets removed..its game over man!