MTG Salvation

W1
Flash
If a nontoken creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead.
2/2

Those are some impressive stats on an absolute blowout of a creature. Weather it's Reanimator, Pod, Tooth and Nail, Flicker Effects, you name it, this lady seems awesome! Thoughts?

I'm not a huge fan of the card due to hosing so many strategies at once that I enjoy. And not so happy to see the white deck getting things that'll warrant it bein jacked up in price. It will probably be cheaper for me to buy singles at this rate instead of support my local store.

I don't like this for cube either for the same reasons. I don't think reanimator is a dominant enough decktype in cube that it needs to be hosed.

I actually like this. I like having some outs to the decks that go over the top, that's one of white's larger problems, and giving them a card that helps that out is nice.

Also, Flash is actually pretty awesome on this guy. You can hold up a Mana Leak or a Lightning Strike and if they don't do anything EOT play this guy. They might even do some weird attacks that allow you to profit off of it by good blocks and/or not expecting an additional attacker.

I think this guy might be good enough for 720. He's probably not good enough for 540 or below though, a 2/2 for 1W I think is the actual main problem with this dude. If he were a 3/1 I'd be all over it, possibly even at 360.

Fun with Flickerwisp!

This affects Persist/Undying creatures too.

Oh geez, I think TennesseeFireman hit it on the head. This isn't a hoser, this is the blink deck's most lethal weapon.

Quote from DarkSapphire »

Oh geez, I think TennesseeFireman hit it on the head. This isn't a hoser, this is the blink deck's most lethal weapon.

It actually hurts the blink deck more than it helps it, since Venser, Momentary Blink, Restoration Angel, and Ghostly Flicker all are just for stuff you own/control.

This does combo well with Flickerwisp and Glimmerpoint Stag though.

Good point! I was allowing Venser to blink the opponent's stuff too, but that's not what the card does.

Quote from DarkSapphire »

Oh geez, I think TennesseeFireman hit it on the head. This isn't a hoser, this is the blink deck's most lethal weapon.

Problem is that most of the cubeable blink cards only work on yourself, but there are still a few ideas that work. Fiend Hunter/Banisher Priest, Parallax Wave... and if you're feeling creative, Vanish into Memory.

I'm not a huge can of hosers like this, but it has enough cool interactions with cubable exile and blink effects that I think it's worth testing. I don't know if there's any cube where reanimator, sneack/show/eureka are so powerful you need a hoser though.

I don't want narrow hatebears in my cube. Especially not this one. It is too weak if the hate effect doesn't matter and it is oppressive against the few decks where it does matter. So, it is either weak or unfun. Pass.

Edit: A friend and regular drafter of my cube thinks that I should include more anti-reanimator cards and would probably love it if I would include this one. Especially since this bear is more maindeckable than many other strict hosers. It is still no Scavenging Ooze though and I am sticking with my "weak or unfun" statement.

I don't think I'll cube this, but it'll be a nice card for eternal sideboards.

I could see this being played in a large cube since there are probably more options for non-casted creatures entering the battlefield and it fits in the aggressive decks as flash can screw up a lot of boards/turns. In a smaller cube I'd rather either the top-tier 2 drops or focused aggro beaters to support the archetype, but it's a sweet card.


Also as an aside I'm glad this isn't modern playable because hosing pod is for suckas, though if you're not playing Treasure Cruise in just about all the formats you're probably straight-up doing it wrong.

Funny, I almost never draft reanimator but I often draft Sneak and Show or Natural Order.

The card is quite obviously powerful, but I'm frankly not fond of white getting even more of the best cards to deal with cheat strategies. Council's Judgment is a big enough beating when you Show and Tell an Emrakul, or when your Ulamog gets thrown out the window for one white mana. There are also a million little interactions, with things like Oblivion Ring or undying. For me it definitely qualifies on power level alone but my personal preference would cater less towards such pure archetypal hate cards.

I think this guy is very cubable and he's found a home in my cube, much to the hatred of the players who love that archetype.

There's a few considerations when including him tho,
1) How powerful do you want cheat strategies to be.
2) How many interactions do you have with him in the cube to make him playable against non-cheaty strategies?

For my cube, I think he's very good.

I have a humans agro sub-theme, I run parallax wave/flicker wisp (combo), there's 2 birthing pods in my cubes, there's kiki jiki-restoration infinite combo archetypes and I fully support sneak/show. So not only does this card hate on a higher % of the format, but he's totally main deckable due to cool interactions... unlike other very powerful hate cards like null rod or timely reinforcements.

That being said, he's so unbelievably strong against certain archetypes, that a consideration for excluding him can be cube archetype balance alone. The same consideration can be had for INCLUDING him as well. Depending on how powerful sneak/show/reanimator is in your cube and how powerful you want it to be.

It's been a few months. Does anyone have any results to share?

This card is/was in the MTGO Holiday Cube, where (ime) it was a playable card, but not a very good one.

I think the main problem with this card is that in an environment where the ability is relevant (i.e. cheating big creatures into play), 2/2's for two are not where you want to be, and vice versa.

I really like Containment Priest. I was running it along side Parallax Wave to support white control decks for a while. With the release of Ugin's Fate however, I took it out for Moat to free up a spot for some new cards as it essentially performs the duties of both cards combined. At 450 my list is super tight - so sacrifices must be made. I'm sure I'll re-include the two as Priest can be abused without Parallax Wave but for now I want to give some other cards the spotlight.

I'm all about making my cube have incredible hatebears which shut down archetypes. Most-everyone drafts an archetype or goodstuff midrange so, giving white and red better cards to encourage drafting them is always something I'm on the lookout for.

This card still looks mediocre to me. Cards like thalia pull their weight in nearly all matchups but not this guy.

This card is bad in the cube. It's just a bear that has text that's useless most of the time, and even against decks where you need it, the effect is inconsistent. Easy pass.

Funny, I've had literally the opposite experience with it.
Proved itself many times over, even against archetypes I wouldn't expect

I've seen it snipe bloodghasts and hellspark elemental one match, then murderous redcap and birthing pod in the next.

I've also seen multiple decks that almost can't beat a resolved priest.

It requires a tight powered list to be good, which unfortunately doesn't have much room so I wouldn't fault anyone for not running it

Ive found it to be fine also. It hoses quite a few cards. It has Flash which I love. It's a human. To each their own.

I think this card would be good only if you run a 360 or less cube that support A LOT cheating strategies. Otherwise, he is just a 2/2 flash bear that didn't help aggro deck or any other shell either.

I just can't figure it out how this card could be maindeck so often and I think it is restricted to sideboard only. I kind of like the interaction with O-Ring, Parralax Wave, Flickerwisp and stuff but it's not enough to make it a good cube card. All those cards are already great without it and Containment Priest is just so bad without them.

With the uprise of persist-combo, mostly thanks to redundancy in enablers such as Grumgully, the Generous, Good-Fortune Unicorn and Renata, Called to the Hunt, I intend to give this card a test-run in my cube. This card now hoses Persist-Combo, Blink, Reanimator, Sneak and Show and Oath of Druids, so maybe it is not as niche as it used to be. Alternatively Hushwing Gryff comes to my mind, which has increased incidental use against midrange creature decks.