MTG Salvation

What do you guys think about this command for Gruul? The anthem does a decent impression of Sarkhan Vol since it isn't repeatable and doesn't grant haste. and doesn't grant the extra point of toughness It seems pretty good at applying a lot of pressure if you decide to pump your team and dome them for 3. It can be a Skullcrack in a pinch and stop other life gain shenanigans. Lastly it can help you ramp by being an Explore without the draw. I like that it's a versatile card that generally does what Gruul wants to be doing without continuing to feed the glut of 4 drops in the guild. I don't know if it's good enough for smaller cubes, but it seems like it can easily slot into larger cubes.

Might be a reasonable sideboard card for constructed, but it's a miss for the cube, IMO.

Love the design but I don't think it's aggressive enough for cube. If the 3 damage mode was a Lightning Bolt, or even a Shock I would be seriously considering it.

Sad but true. This card is kind of in a weird spot; Skullcrack and Explore + Pump would be fine modes on their own, but you'll rarely want Skullcrack modes and Explore/Pump modes in the same deck.

Not that it can't be powerful. Glorious Charge plus Lava Spike can do a fantastic amount of work for this spell's CMC in an aggro/burn deck. Most cubes don't support RG aggro and burn to that extent though, so this is probably a pass.

As much as I like this card, it seems to be much more a construed finisher/utility card for aggro/burn in constructed than something that can make it in cube. All of the modes are just too situational and low impact for cube. Still, the fact that they printed this at 2 gives me high hopes for the remaining 3 commands. Especially rakdos.

I really hope the Rakdos spell has a Duress mode and some form of creature removal.

It needed a bolt mode or a card draw mode in there. If it was giant growth instead of glorious charge I would also be all over it. But I would rather play lava spike, skullcrack, or explore and none of those are close.

After shuffling so many charms in and out in RtR only Boros Charm seems to be a home run, and that will be how I compare all of these commands.

Disappointing.

Woops double post, or maybe subconsciously I was doubly disappointed.

Glorious Charge + Lava Spike seems decent for aggressive decks and I expect it would be the most common combination. Anti-lifegain could come in handy, too.

I think that Ghor-Clan Rampager is still a better card for aggressive Gruul decks, but it is close.

I like Ghor-Clan Rampager a lot better than this spell.

The poor response it's getting is making my seriously question my evaluation, but I think this card is really really good.

It represents a LOT of damage (for 2 mana) with a few creatures in play, without creatures in play it can be a skull rack which is basically constructed level power, it can act as a sweet combat trick that can cause a blowout (and then burning your opponent)... Shoring up a weakness green has to fliers.

The explore part makes me ??? Because the rest of the card is so aggressive But I guess if you really need to kill a planes walker, or hold the command up as a combat trick, you can get a little extra value out of it.


Definitely testing.

Ghor-Clan Rampager also represents a lot of damage for 2 mana and you only need a single creature it play. Plus, he gives a bigger toughness boost, so your creature survives, even when tussling with a much larger blocker. Only when you have several creatures out, the global pump becomes better and deals more damage than the Rampager does.

The Explore part can be a surprise landfall trigger. However, there are very few cubable landfall cards where that would matter.

That, and Rampager is a creature, too.

This card also has combat blowout potential, and Defensive potential when losing the race against fliers that rampaged doesn't have.

I like rampager more too, but I'm suuuper high on rampager. Think it's #1 or #2 gruul (blasphemous I know)

This card does 6 damage for 2 mana in 2 v 2

Yeah, this is bad. I hope some of the commands end up being strong cards. I really hope this doesn't turn out like the Souls cycle, where they made neutered Titans that were terrible.

Quote from Fredo »

I like Ghor-Clan Rampager a lot better than this spell.

It's a toss-up. Both can give RG the ability to race. If anything, this card opens up routes for Naya (GWR) -- something I've been looking to do. I could see Naya aggro being a thing with this card + 2 [non-4 drop Gruul cards].

The larger issue is whether you want RG to be represented by mid-rangey shenanigans like Bloodbraid, Domri, Huntmaster, etc or "kill things with an aggressive curve". Red 1 and 2 drops are, by default, aggro. Green 1 and 2 drops are mana dorks or aggressive 2/x things, scooze, and goyf.

Gruul is too deep for this to make the cut, IMO. And that's kind of sad, really, because Gruul has one staple and a bunch of other solid cards that are basically interchangeable. Domri, Huntmaster, Xenagos, Kird Ape, Tattermunge Maniac, Sarkhan Vol, Flinthoof Boar, and Ghor-Clan Rampager are all cards I'd run over this. I'd probably even run Fanatic of Xenagos or Tin Street Hooligan over it if I were going real deep.

Quote from calibretto »

Gruul is too deep for this to make the cut, IMO. And that's kind of sad, really, because Gruul has one staple and a bunch of other solid cards that are basically interchangeable. Domri, Huntmaster, Xenagos, Kird Ape, Tattermunge Maniac, Sarkhan Vol, Flinthoof Boar, and Ghor-Clan Rampager are all cards I'd run over this. I'd probably even run Fanatic of Xenagos or Tin Street Hooligan over it if I were going real deep.

Can I ask what the one staple is? I think every single one of those cards is interchangeable. I think gruul is one of the stronger guilds as cards like Xenagos, Sarkhan and huntmaster can just single handedly win games as a four drop rather easily. Gruul's only weakness is it has SO much power at the 4 drop, like wizards allocates all of RG's power at CMC 4.

Edit: Can I just say Bloodbraid elf is my favorite card, and I completely forgot about it when I wrote this?

Bloodbraid is also 4... I just want a strong gruul card that doesn't cost four, but looking at the best gruul cards the 4 drops are more then significantly stronger than the non-four drops.

RG is mainly a midrange pairing so its perfect that all of the good gruul cards are fours.

If only the Explore option were some kind of Naturalize variant...

Ya I was pretty impressed with this card but now people have me doubting myself

Is this card not as good as what I thought it was?

Are you talking about constructed? It's probably a fine sideboard card for a few different decks. But for cube? No, this card's not good.

After seeing this in action in the latest standard tournaments, I think this card could be good enough for medium-large cubes.
I have 7 slots for Gruul in my cube and I consider to switch Kird Ape for this. The need for two gruul 1-drops (other one being Tattermunge Maniac) has gone down as green and red has gotten a decent number of cubeable aggro 1 drops from the past few sets. Furthermore the command seems more interesting/unique than Kird Ape and it could help Purphoros-aggro/token decks become a more viable archetype.

What do you think? Is there still no love for the command?