MTG Salvation

Monastery Swiftspear has been ok so far. It is a decent option for larger cubes, mainly due to the lack of better options. I would consider it somehwere around the 7-9 card mark for red 1-drops and to be on roughly the same level as Mogg Fanatic and Legion Loyalist. I like her more than Spikeshot Elder (which was the card that I cut for her, btw).

It's been a few months - how are people feeling about this guy? I'm debating opening a slot for him in light of the new White mythics pushing a Spells Matter theme. I know Delver loves him in Modern, but how has he been doing in Cube?

I'm giving him a trial run. So far so ...okay. I wish I had more Jackal Pups, but this will do for now.

I should probably just throw him in a Tiny Leaders deck under Shu Yun to satisfy my desire to play with him. Has he seen any play in Boros mid-range decks for you guys, or has it pretty much been confined to aggro?

She is ok in midrange, threatening to become a 2/3 on defense is nice against zombies and tokens. Works very well with equipment.

I ranked her 8th for red 1 cc creatures on Colby's top 10 list so she's right on the cusp for me. She was inconsistent in the limited testing we had since all our aggressive decks were creature heavy (with the exception of burn). But with the new FRF additions I can see creature light aggressive decks being a real thing so I want to give her another go.

Sorry for Necro, but I want to ask what people's thoughts about Swiftspear in 2022 is?

I've kept her in the cube primarily because everyone else did and I've been consistently unimpressed by her damage output compared to a Jackal Pup variants.

Necros are a good way of re-evaluating old cards in a new light. Hard to believe its been 2015 since her threat seen Discussion.

I have added and removed swift spear afew times over the years.

As we get more cheap spells it gets better and better because double spelling is something you want to do anyway and helps pump swiftspear.

I'm still on the fence with it, but what it lacks in reliability it makes up for in swingy-ness so I am happy to have added it back in when I pushed spells matters a bit more.

I think the mistake is seeing it as a card only for the agro/burn (it's home in legacy) decks. I don't see it as a stright jackel Pup variant, it's more multi-dimensional and slots into afew decks that don't usually get hard hitting 1 drops

Considerably better in powered cubes than unpowered , and considerably better in cubes that tilt their red section to focus on burn over creatures.

my experiences with the card seems to be much different than others here and I don’t understand why.

In my cube it’s a shadow of its constructed self , but still a solid step above jackal pup.

Quote from LucidVision »

Considerably better in powered cubes than unpowered , and considerably better in cubes that tilt their red section to focus on burn over creatures.

my experiences with the card seems to be much different than others here and I don’t understand why.

In my cube it’s a shadow of its constructed self , but still a solid step above jackal pup.

I think the first half is I feel the bar for non-red 1-drops is it needs to be stronger than 1 mana 2/2 or 2/1.

Usher of the Fallen, Wild Nacatl, Bloodsoaked Champion, Cult Conscript, Ragavan, Falkenrath Pit Fighter, Esper Essential, Dryad Militant, Recruitment Officer, Icehide Golem etc. all have either hybrid mana or relevant text.

The second problem I've had with Swiftspear is I've found I rarely have the spell density to make it worthwhile. I've found my most successful aggressive decks are more about stax/ tokens and swiftspear is often a sore thumb of a red-black stax aggro, red-white aggro or red-green stompy.

The third problem I've found is I think she lacks a bit to make it worthwhile in a spells-matters shell - I've found those decks often want to be a bit more midrange with slightly higher quality of threats.

It's just different than a Pup variant. It goes in decks that are loaded with proactive noncreature spells, and in those decks, it's really good. It's far better for burn decks and spells matters decks than it is in zoo-style aggro.