MTG Salvation

Anyone with play experience on this card?

It's good. Probably the 4th or 5th best white 5-drop for the cube, depending on how valuable Karmic Guide is for you.

It's more powerful than Karmic Guide in my experience. White is a decent secondary color for reanimator, but Karmic Guide is not necessary for it to accomplish that. Wingmate Roc is just game-endingly powerful.

It's not really fair to compare it to Karmic Guide. Karmic Guide shouldn't really have to compete with other 5 drops in the same way that Wingmate Roc has to compete with Cloudgoat Ranger etc. Karmic Guide is an amazing shenanigan enabler, and does some really amazing stuff in the right deck. You might as well be comparing Hermit Druid to Tarmagoyf in my opinion.

It's not really fair to compare it to Karmic Guide. Karmic Guide shouldn't really have to compete with other 5 drops in the same way that Wingmate Roc has to compete with Cloudgoat Ranger etc. Karmic Guide is an amazing shenanigan enabler, and does some really amazing stuff in the right deck. You might as well be comparing Hermit Druid to Tarmagoyf in my opinion.

Wingmate Roc is certainly good, but it costs 5 which is a very real issue. I've seen it die enough without leaving anything of note, but the lifegain is actually huge if you can untap with it. I wouldn't go out of my way to get one as the 5 drops for white are just as/barely more costly if not cheaper, but if I got one in a pack/trade/draft I'd try it out.

Quote from Juju »

It's not really fair to compare it to Karmic Guide. Karmic Guide shouldn't really have to compete with other 5 drops in the same way that Wingmate Roc has to compete with Cloudgoat Ranger etc. Karmic Guide is an amazing shenanigan enabler, and does some really amazing stuff in the right deck. You might as well be comparing Hermit Druid to Tarmagoyf in my opinion.

It's perfectly reasonable to compare it to karmic guide, as they cost the same amount of mana and they are both competing for the #4 slot in white's 5-drops. Are the shenanigans possible with karmic guide worth more in the cube or a consistent but boring effect? That should be the question when deciding which to play. I like Karmic Guide, but her applications are pretty narrow as compared to say Lark, who is a solid beater in its own right. Wingmate Roc almost never wheels as it makes a great 5-drop for any white deck.

I'd compare Wingmate Roc to Karmic Guide, then I'd just play Archangel of Thune instead.

Archangel has been terrible in my experience. I'd play both guide and roc over her. In the new world order archangel is pretty much outclassed as she doesn't give immediate value nor is she monstrously above the curve like baneslayer.

I also like Guide and Roc more than the Archangel.

I like Karmic Guide a whole lot. She lets huge memorable plays happen thanks to the fantastic synergies she has, and she's hella fun to play. Cloudgoat is an awesome card no doubt and much more versatile (abuseable as heck too), but I value Karmic Guide's effect enough to put her just a tad ahead. It should be noted that we do not particularly support a token theme, which increases the Ranger's value.

If it's compared that way I rather not have "autopicks" from a pack. Karmic Guide shenanigans makes for a "funner" cube. As do Archangel of Thune.

The only reason why I may consider Roc is coz of populate shenanigans. But because populate is not as good (the populate cards in general), and not so much copying the Roc itself, I think I'll pass.

So far I've had nothing but good experiences with Archangel. She's a must kill creature or your team gets out of control very quickly. She's like the perfect curve topper for more aggressive midrange decks (think little kid GW). I think Roc is fine, but boring in comparison. And I was never overly impressed with Karmic Guide as her "shenanigans" just never happened in our white decks.

You don't need Populate shenanigans to justify Roc. It's good enough on its own.

I played with/against archangel a ton in standard and modern and was never impressed.
Can completely take over the game in certain contexts, but far too vulnerable for the cost most of the time.

There's matchups were the card really shines, but many matchups where it's close to a liability.

Totally fine card, but wingmate roc has impressed me more. They are close enough in power level that I dont think it makes a big difference which ones you chose.


As for wingmate roc, I tested her out in replace of cloudgoat ranger for a very small sample, but decided to switch her back for the ranger after a few cubes. In a deck without recur synergy, token synergy or many blink effects, I like roc better overall.. But the upside of cloudgoat ranger was higher in the decks that actively wanted either card.

In random white decks, roc was barely making the final 23, so decided to go back with cloudgoat for the upside. (I had a sick bant opposition deck that made me apreciate the cloudgoat)

So for me:
1 Reivalark
2 Baneslayer Angel
3 Cloudgoat ranger
4 Wingmate roc

and a fourth white 5 drop barely misses my 460

Archangel of Thune has been stellar for us. It is easily in the top 4 of our 5-drops, therefore we have had no need for Wingmate Roc, which seems fine but boring.

Woah woah guys lets remember when Roc and Archangel are both on the board, Roc triggers Archangels +1/+1 counter ability

I think it's great that we have so many options now. White 5's are super deep.

My 2 cents is that for these archetypes at least:
Tokens: Cloudgoat over Wingmate
Lifegain: Archangel over Wingmate

I also personally like Archangel of Thune as a replacement for Baneslayer (it's a more fair version), so for me Archangel is filling two roles and is nigh uncuttable for me at this point (the other two uncuttables for me are Reivalark and Karmic Guide for overall uniqueness and shenanigan enabling goodness). I only have one open slot and Cloudgoat has that right now.

Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Mirror Entity and Venser, Shaper Savant and insane together and means plenty of fun!

Sorry Roc, but this sounds like Magic to me!

Wingmate Roc just keeps tearing up my slower Multiplayer meta. Given it's easier to find someone to swing at here, the raid mechanic goes off more often, so it is never without its partner for me. We've also seen it run alongside some token decks for some very, very effective lifegain. Some day, someone is going to soulbond it with Deadeye Navigator for multiple tokens after an attack phase.
Importantly, I would easily rank it ahead of Karmic Guide and Cloudgoat Ranger in this environment. The only five-drop in my cube ATM that holds a candle to it is Baneslayer Angel (and there is the odd twittering over whether Roc is actually better in our cube... I think it's still BSA at the moment, but it's closer than I gave it credit).

I'm warmer on Roc than I was before. Sometimes it's a lot better than Baneslayer since it gets two bodies. I don't know if I'd play it at 360, but it wouldn't look out of place there or in larger cubes. (i.e. there are better options, but they're not miles better.)

I ultimately cut Wingmate Roc because raid turned out to be harder to trigger than I'd originally expected.

I did too. It was a suboptimal card post sweeper effect (which is exactly where I need my 5-drops that produce multiple bodies to excel), and had other times where I had to make bad attacks to try and get the raid to trigger. It doesn't have that much higher of an average power/cost ratio than other army-in-a-can 5cc threats that don't deal with consistency issues, so we ultimately cut it for the next best effect of that ilk.