MTG Salvation

Please ignore the financial value of the cards for the purposes of this discussion.

Each of these exercises, unless otherwise stated, is the p1p1 of a new draft, not the next pick of a previous exercise.

With all the "enter the battlefield shannanigans", I'm betting on Angel of Emancipation. Righteous Blow is also nice, but it seems like there aren't many creatures with a low toughness

Hard choice, but I like the Emancipation Angel, even with all the good white in this pack and the probably popularity of the color.

Good bomb is good. Demonlord ALL day.

I took Grave Exchange

Nightshade Peddler. Repetitive deathtouch is going to be a pain for my opponent.

It's between nightshade peddler and seraph of dawn. I'd go with seraph p1p1 because I think white looks like the strongest color in the set.

Seraph of Dawn is really good.

Nightshade Peddler is okay.

I'll have a more accurate evaluation of Demonlord of Ashmouth when I've played the format a bit, but right now I think it is quite bad.

Emancipation Angel is solid. It might be better than Seraph of Dawn, but I'm not sure.

How do you NOT pick Demonlord of Ashenmouth?

He is literally the only playable black card in the pack. You can cut black and most likely wheel the Grave Exchange.

Quote from twicky_kid

How do you NOT pick Demonlord of Ashenmouth?

He is literally the only playable black card in the pack. You can cut black and most likely wheel the Grave Exchange.

It's a bad card? You need at least 2 creatures in play to not run the risk of getting blown out. If you're curving out that well you're probably winning anyways. There are 4 or 5 cards in the pack that are better than him (including Grave Exchange).


For me, it's Seraph of Dawn or Emancipation Angel.

There are a lot of "when dies triggers" so you get value out of what ever you were saccing anyways. 4 toughness is enough to punch through anything around his cc. 5 power flying is a very good clock for limited.

Quote from Mr. Hiss

The Demon isn't that good to be honest, since you set yourself up for a potentional 3-4 for 1. Not that lovely, i'd say.

- Hiss.

Erm... how?

You sac a creature, they play removal on the Demon. That's a 2-for-1. You get back the Demon and then either sac another creature or lose the Demon... which is still a 2-for-1. Think about it - if you let the Demon be exiled, you neither gained nor lost anything from Undying - you lost two creatures to their one card. If you sac the second creature, then you still only lost two creatures. Whence the 3 or 4 you're referring to, then?

Once he's on the board, if he's not the only creature, killing him just gives you the choice of whether you want him to be exiled, or sacrifice one of your other creatures - so yes, there's the initial investment, but using removal on him doesn't (relative the established board state) give you a 2-for-1. And there aren't going to be many cases where you decide that you'd rather not have the 6/5 flyer, so you'll usually be happy to sac another creature in that case.

So yeah, he's card disadvantage when you first play him, but he's powerful, and when he dies you have the option to "trade up" something else. But I suppose if they're running bounce then you could be screwed. If it's not repeatable (i.e. with the flicker creature, Nephalia Smuggler), that's only a 2-for-1 again. But converting bounce into removal is bad enough in itself. It really would not be a good card against blue. The other time to be worried is if you're planning on sacrificing a small creature, and they use a small removal spell on that leaving it without a creature to sac.

At any rate, I'd pick the rare, since I'd be passing too much white, and it's obvious that at least at the pre-release there are going to be a lot of people fighting over white. And those white cards aren't good enough to make me want to fight for white. The black card is risky, but it's strong.

Yeah, you're not getting 3-for-1'd unless they play Mist Raven, in which case you are in fact getting 3-for-1'd. Ouch.

I took the angel, it's a solid 3/3 flyer and it works with all thos ETB shenanigans

Emancipation Angel can be OK, but its so bad on turn 3 if you haven't played anything else yet. It also just trades with most other fliers in the set, unlike seraph of dawn. Seraph helps you outrace just about anything on the ground.

Stern Mentor seems fun. Just stall the board out and win? I don't know how viable that is compared to the alternatives.


For Red-X, where X is white? Is Seraph of Dawn better than Emancipation Angel?

If you are playing RW, I'm pretty sure Emancipation Angel is much better than Seraph of Dawn.

Quote from TheLizard

Yeah, you're not getting 3-for-1'd unless they play Mist Raven, in which case you are in fact getting 3-for-1'd. Ouch.

They can also play a removal spell on your "other" creature and get an easy 2 -for-1. It's still a blowout.

demonlord, let's abuse undying shall we?

Angel and white removal spell are my secondary choices.

Quote from Wydogg5305

They can also play a removal spell on your "other" creature and get an easy 2 -for-1. It's still a blowout.

I agree, but I'm just trying to point out that there are only a handful of situations in which you actually get 3-for-1ed. But getting 2-for-1ed is bad enough a lot of the time.

It's probably not so bad that you wouldn't play a 4-mana 5/4 flier. If you play cautiously, it could win the game. Probably goes best in undying decks, or decks with mana ramp like avacyn's pilgrim (though, if I recall, there were no mana dorks in this set?).

Why on God's green earth would anyone play the demon when the opponent has open mana? Besides, if it's turn 4 then the odds of the opp having open mana is much smaller. i can imagine him being a tough late game decision (unless there's major board stall and you got dorks to spare), but turn 4 he's a tank.

I take the demon, drawback and all, and leave no decent black in the pack.

Quote from Wydogg5305

They can also play a removal spell on your "other" creature and get an easy 2 -for-1. It's still a blowout.

Count the instant speed removal in the set.