MTG Salvation

I knew Prosperous Pirates was going to have some great interactions with Ghostly Flicker and its ilk, but turns out it's an excellent substitute for Peregrine Drake. While the combo needs a bit more to work with to get going, it yields very similar results to the previous versions of the deck. Essentially, it needs an extra cost-reducer to make the combo infinite. And with the still relatively new God-Pharaoh's Faithful, the deck can be very resilient to early pressure than it ever was before.

Is Esper Flicker going to make a huge comeback? Is Prosperous Pirates just too good for Pauper? Or are Flicker cards the real problem? What are your thoughts?

This is a good catch! We do have some good cost reducers, but it depends on what color splash you want. Goblin Electromancer is definitely a good choice since Red helps stop creatures early on. The Familiars that reduce blue spell costs can both fit in an Esper build, but we can also go Grixis with Nightscape Familiar and Electromancer. Esper and Grixis will also give you access to Disciple of the Vault which makes a wincon with all the Treasures being sacrificed!

Disciple of the Vault is an interesting addition to the combo! If Ghostly Flicker costs 1 mana, then you net a treasure every cycle and technically have infinite damage! Nice!

Ghostly Flicker doesn't even have to cost 1 mana. One cost reducer can make it 2 mana then Archaeomancer + Pirates will give you two treasues and Flicker in hand. Sac both treasures to cast Flicker again to rinse and repeat. You don't have to net anything extra with Disciple of the Vault, you only need to net extra mana if you want to cast a big X spell. Sage's Row Denizen is another option too.

I like PP, but I don't think it is Drake. Drake was basically Splinter Twin in pauper, giving you a deck which could simply tempo out a win or combo in the face of aggro decks. PP lacks evasion and generates less mana, so it is less likely to win through pure tempo, and needs more combo parts to win.

I think it will be a good t2 card, like Tortured Existence.

Quote from Darkninja107 »

Ghostly Flicker doesn't even have to cost 1 mana. One cost reducer can make it 2 mana then Archaeomancer + Pirates will give you two treasues and Flicker in hand. Sac both treasures to cast Flicker again to rinse and repeat. You don't have to net anything extra with Disciple of the Vault, you only need to net extra mana if you want to cast a big X spell. Sage's Row Denizen is another option too.

I thought I had replied to this, sorry!

Right you are! This makes going infinite with the popular Sage's Row Denizen even easier than I thought. I can definitely see this deck getting traction.

Quote from Tvtyrant »

I like PP, but I don't think it is Drake. Drake was basically Splinter Twin in pauper, giving you a deck which could simply tempo out a win or combo in the face of aggro decks. PP lacks evasion and generates less mana, so it is less likely to win through pure tempo, and needs more combo parts to win.

I think it will be a good t2 card, like Tortured Existence.

Prosperous Pirates has very similar combo potential in the old shells of the drake decks. And although it doesn't have evasion, it has a rather impressive body that can block very efficiently and even attack rather reliably against the decks it would need to, often creating an even faster clock with its extra attack. I think the card is very comparable, even with different abilities and stats.

I'm a big Ghostly Flicker fan, so I'm happy to see this printed. Some brainstorming:



Utility cards with ETB triggers require two Familiars to build up Treasure.
Cards labeled "Non-ETB" above only require one Familiar because you can Flicker only Pirates and Wall/mancer to repeat their effects.

As an aside, Teachings can help fetch the second Flicker or dig into a small utility toolbox (e.g. Prohibit, Doom Blade).

Someone's had mixed success with this list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/818937#paper

Any thoughts?

I've seen Aven Fogbringer played in Familiar decks and it can really mess with decks that use ETBT lands or just put some decks behind.