MTG Salvation

Quote from Breathe1234 »

Quote from JuiceBOX »

That... seems like a lot of unnecessary math if one was to try and balance colors, guilds, etc.

Personally, I would just consider this a green mana dork and move one. The inclusion of black makes the card better, but running it just as a wonky BoP is fine. I tend to just simplify cards like this and separate what is a core function and what is extra and file it based on core function. Players can then decide if the extra mile is worth it or not. You will eventually shake out if the card is even worth the slot or not.

I do agree its pretty unnecessary - its more or less just to justify running more multi color cards.

I would just try to evaluate things on some sort of baseline and place them accordingly. Noble Hierarch, for example, is just a green mana dork. At its worse case scenario it just provides off color ramp, but it's best case scenario is that it fixes mana in WUG. In the case of Deathrite Shaman, it is slightly more complex - but the same rules for classifying remain. The B ability should just be considered fluff for any player in the additional color. Much easier than doing math and rather effective in my experience.

I slot Lingering Souls into W using this method - as well as other cards.

This really isn't the space for it but I go by primary usage for organizing my cube. For example Dryad Militant is classed as mono white in my cube because green just doesn't play 1 mana 2/1's in our set up, while lingering souls is classed in gold because it usually gets cut unless you can at least theoretically pay for both halves. We just track how they are used. Back in the day I initially had Deathrite in as a black card because the idea of a black ramping 1 drop seemed insanely good but it was used in both black and green so we reclassified it to golgari.

Anybody still playing this one? There's so much graveyard interaction/looting/discard payoffs these days that I could see it being more reliable.

Ive had this guy since he came out and he is always useful.
With the heavy graveyard shenanigans that seem to be on their way in the new modern set this guy just keeps getting better.

I would argue Golgari has 5+ options that are playable with Deathrite Shaman being one of them. I think its value improves depending on your playgroup/ cube size. I would argue its a reliable dork if you have 3+ fetch lands/ Strip Mine/ Terramorphic Expanse / Cycle lands etc. This may be more difficult to get in certain playgroups as there are some drafters that would aggressively pick up fetch lands while in some playgroups, I've seen Polluted Delta on the wheel.

However, I opted for Maelstrom Pulse as I'm a sucker for Amonkhet invocations.

I recently added it back in to have more bullets against graveyard decks and since it has become more and more reliable over time. Never a bad thing to have around.