MTG Salvation

We had a similar thread going for Theros and there's a few new goodies to talk about now! So here's a few of the cards that grabbed my attention!

Pharagax Giant looks like a strong creature! He's a bit too high on the curve for most red decks, but perhaps he can pave the way for a more controlish red deck. He'll either be a 5/5 for 5 mana or a 3/3 that deals 5 damage to a player when he hits the battlefield.

Marshmist Titan looks to be a good finisher for Black decks, but its lack of regeneration may keep it from topping Twisted Abomination in that role.

Akroan Skyguard seems like a strong option for White Weenie. A flyer that can get pretty strong fast seems like it will fill a good spot in some decks.

And finally Impetuous Sunchaser was another creature that caught my eye. Red seems to have a lack of cheap, evasive creatures and this one has Haste also! Slap a Furor of the Bitten and/or Madcap Skills on it and you've got a strong threat!

What are your thoughts on these cards?

Any other Commons you guys think deserves a mention?

Loyal Pegasus and Nyxborn Shieldmate seem very good on White Weenies.

Scouring Sands seems a upgraded Electrickery which is very nice.

Swordwise Centaur will be a very good beater on green decks

I have to highly disagree about Loyal Pegasus, if you play him turn one you won't be able to attack until turn three because of summoning sickness on the turn two creature. Sure he may be able to block but the amount of better one drop creatures greatly outweighs his eventual evasion and ability to attack.

Maybe in a WR deck so the haste ability can be taken advantage of, but not solely White Weenie.

Quote from j1nakamura

Scouring Sands seems a upgraded Electrickery which is very nice.

Scouring Sands is pretty nice, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it being a Sorcery. The scry is great but Electrickery being an Instant leads to some great tricks during combat. I will definitely do some testing to figure out which one is better.

I just had a thought about Akroan Skyguard. What about a reinforce heavy soldier deck? Double tokens might be somewhat interesting.

I will test that titan on my MBC, I'm afraid I won't be playing it until turn 6, but I will play 2 in a row if so. It chump blocks almost anything, I wish it had a lower colorless cost and double, even triple B cost. Something like 4BB could have been great on turn 4, giving double black for the Gray Merchant.

Quote from XBM Yosho

I just had a thought about Akroan Skyguard. What about a reinforce heavy soldier deck? Double tokens might be somewhat interesting.

Unfortunately Reinforce won't trigger Heroic. Heroic only triggers from Spells that target the creature and Reinforce is an activated ability.

Quote from Darkninja107

Unfortunately Reinforce won't trigger Heroic. Heroic only triggers from Spells that target the creature and Reinforce is an activated ability.

Ah you are right, for some reason I thought I remembered it saying "cast" somewhere in there. Oh well lol.

I feel like the skyguard is just a weaker auriok sunchaser. Since the sunchaser is much easier to turn on. Skyguard could have implications in a deck filled with target spells and other heroics, but that is to limit the cardpool to choose from, since heroic is a limited ability right now that would, of course, compete with all of classic pauper.

I personally like Aspect of the Hydra. Often it will be a worse groundswell, but that's like saying skred is worse than flame slash. I just really like cards that only get more and more powerful as the game goes on.

Setessan Oathsworn might find a place in stompy lists.

I really like Crypsis. It can be used offensive or defensive, it enables both, Heroic and Inspired, it can be a saving grasp or simply push through (almost) any defense.

Nullify will be another option instead of Psychic Barrier in mono U decks, trading the life loss for countering auras.

Except for a few shenanigans in which you want your own creatures to take damage or die, Fall of the Hammer is alot better than Pit Fight in red decks.

Satyr Wayfinder (see below) might find his way (no pun intended) into graveyard-based strategies with cards such as Grisly Salvage and Mulch.

Quote from Spoiler »

Satyr Wayfinder

:1mana::symg: Creature — Satyr
When Satyr Wayfinder enters the battlefield, reveal the top four cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them into your hand. Put the rest into your graveyard.
The first satyr to wake after a revel must search for the site of the next one.
Illus. Steve Prescott #136/1651/1

My favorites so far are Crypsis and Marshmist Titan so far. The former will allow for all sorts of tricks, both for attacking and blocking. The latter will work really well with the already powerful devotion mechanic in black. He's going to be easier to play than Twisted Abomination, and his 5 toughness will make up for the lack of regeneration. a turn slower on the clock, though, and can't fetch lands.

Fall of the hammer also seems strong, but like a few other cards in this set, it doesn't have a deck to go in, really. Aspect of Hydra is also somewhat interesting. Probably too situational to be playable. Nullify might be interesting sideboard material for blue control, as it has more applications than something like annul, but unfortunately costs more to play.

Scouring Sands definitely does not beat Electrickery. The instant speed is instrumental.

Swordwise Centaur is strictly worse than Garruk's Companion.

Horseshoe crab+ Retraction Helix, anyone?

Quote from Obermeir

Horseshoe crab+ Retraction Helix, anyone?

Oh God! I didn't think of that... Combo with High Tide for a huge board wipe! All that at instant speed at EOT and make your opponent discard a lot of cards.

I've been wanting to build a deck with the Crab for about 5 years now. My plans usually involved pinging and/or drawing cards. Maybe Pauper is the right environment for it! The instant speed is what makes it really powerful. coupled with counters and lots of mana (though not as much as you'd think), this could be a real game-winner.

Quote from Obermeir

I've been wanting to build a deck with the Crab for about 5 years now. My plans usually involved pinging and/or drawing cards. Maybe Pauper is the right environment for it! The instant speed is what makes it really powerful. coupled with counters and lots of mana (though not as much as you'd think), this could be a real game-winner.

A friend of mine runs a casual U/R ping deck built around the crab and it's very effective and mostly commons are in it (and now that I think about it, it might be completely common). I say make a go for it and definitely run Retraction Helix!

I knew reaction helix was big, I just didn't know the crab exsisted! definitely a huge find. Oh jeez I'm going timmy.

You mean Johnny, right? Like Johnny, Combo Player?

You're right, a lot of the cards in my crappy attempts at making a Horseshoe crab decks are common. Psionic Gift, Hermetic Study, Sigil of Sleep, Soliton and Drift of Phantasms. Unfortunately, this means we can't play things like Gorgon Flail, Neko-Te and Puresight Merrow.

But, now that there're both Reaction Helix and Banishing Knack in the game, we can make a really consistent bounce deck.

How to win, though?

Well you could go for the damage route, as against any creature deck you will most likely be able to bounce anything they might throw at you, slowly killing them with attacking and psionic gift/heremetic study/maybe Quicksilver Dagger.
Soliton can deal quite a bit of damage, too.

However I do see some problems with against removal and especially against spell-based decks (such as burn). You will need to sideboard a complete blue counter-arsenal to stand a chance against them. (Against burn also on the speed-side. Unless something goes wrong, burn should be able to kill turn 4.)

Quote from Obermeir

You mean Johnny, right? Like Johnny, Combo Player?

You're right, a lot of the cards in my crappy attempts at making a Horseshoe crab decks are common. Psionic Gift, Hermetic Study, Sigil of Sleep, Soliton and Drift of Phantasms. Unfortunately, this means we can't play things like Gorgon Flail, Neko-Te and Puresight Merrow.

But, now that there're both Reaction Helix and Banishing Knack in the game, we can make a really consistent bounce deck.

How to win, though?

Going U/R gives you access to Spikeshot Goblin, which we've had discussions about before, Fire Whip which can push through 1 extra damage if you're tapped out and Red gives you access to other burn spells. Throw in Dispel and Mizzium Skin for some removal protection. Ophidian Eye is also good.

Going back to new cards: What do you guys think of Claim of Erebos? This seems like it would be a strong card. Put it on a Ravenous Rats so it doesn't become useless on the field. It's also a pretty good mana sink too!

Aspect of Hydra and Setessan Oathsworn have potential to make a more mid-range green devotion/pump deck viable.

Green ramp isn't actually too bad. I've played around with one based around Rumbling Baloth and Nylea's Disciple, and these cards have the potential to make it better.

Quote from Placebo Effect

Aspect of Hydra and Setessan Oathsworn have potential to make a more mid-range green devotion/pump deck viable.

Green ramp isn't actually too bad. I've played around with one based around Rumbling Baloth and Nylea's Disciple, and these cards have the potential to make it better.

Add in Garruk's Companion and Trained Armodon for some early Devotion enablers and you've got a pretty scary deck!

Also, we are linking to new cards by linking them to the spoiler art in the spoiler section. The usual link sites don't have the new cards yet.

A peasant combo (I didn't say it was feasible or worthwhile though )

Auratog + Enchantments like Launch or Rancor (ones that go back to hand when they hit the graveyard) + one of the white creatures with Heroic

Quote from Joe_

A peasant combo (I didn't say it was feasible or worthwhile though )

Auratog + Enchantments like Launch or Rancor (ones that go back to hand when they hit the graveyard) + one of the white creatures with Heroic

An interesting idea, but I think 3 colors might be a problem. A W/G deck would be better. Throw in Fortitude, Brilliant Halo and Rofellos's Gift then you'd have enough cards to feed your strategy!

Quote from Joe_

A peasant combo (I didn't say it was feasible or worthwhile though )

Auratog + Enchantments like Launch or Rancor (ones that go back to hand when they hit the graveyard) + one of the white creatures with Heroic

Auratog is rare, so not even peasant legal.

Phantatog or Thaumatog might work, though.

Quote from BladewingX

Auratog is rare, so not even peasant legal.

Phantatog or Thaumatog might work, though.

I can't believe I didn't catch that. I always forget that Tempest set didn't have rarity colors, so I didn't notice.

Quote from BladewingX

Well you could go for the damage route, as against any creature deck you will most likely be able to bounce anything they might throw at you, slowly killing them with attacking and psionic gift/heremetic study/maybe Quicksilver Dagger.
Soliton can deal quite a bit of damage, too.

However I do see some problems with against removal and especially against spell-based decks (such as burn). You will need to sideboard a complete blue counter-arsenal to stand a chance against them. (Against burn also on the speed-side. Unless something goes wrong, burn should be able to kill turn 4.)

The damage is really slow, as you can well imagine. I think a mix of Psionic Gift and Banishing Knack cards are good way to control the board and apply minimal pressure, but it's not a good win condition.

As I'm currently imagining the deck, Burn would not be an issue because of the massive counterspell suite I would run in the mainboard, which complement the board-wiping bounce spell nicely. Still to be figured out though. Horseshoe Crab decks I've attempted to build have been depressingly bad, but I've never tackled the idea for Pauper.

Quote from Darkninja107

Going U/R gives you access to Spikeshot Goblin, which we've had discussions about before, Fire Whip which can push through 1 extra damage if you're tapped out and Red gives you access to other burn spells. Throw in Dispel and Mizzium Skin for some removal protection. Ophidian Eye is also good.

Spikeshot goblin needs pump spells to be effective, and I'm worried about deck-space. He would be awesome though. So would Ophidian Eye.

Sorry for polluting the conversation, I'll open up a proper forum topic with an rough draft soon. This is exciting!