MTG Salvation

Really looking forward to this card. This is the sort of cool design I'd love to have more of in red and white 1 and 2s.

I'm excited to try this guy out in Goblin Glory Chaser's place. I particularly love the interaction with Garruk Relentless.

Sidenote: Isn't there usually a thread up by now to discuss inclusions and cards we are testing? I'm not sure who usually creates this thread or if it's fine to take that upon myself so I'll just wait for it.

This does look pretty dope, and I try to run a large number of actual burn spells. Does anyone think it's strong enough to oppose Zurgo as the next pick for 360 alongside Gorger, Satyr, Guide, Swiftspear, Cackler, and Noble?

Oppose Zurgo Bellstriker? He's the 2nd best red 2-power 1-drop behind Goblin Guide, and is one of the better aggressive 1-drops in the cube. I don't think this mage is anywhere near Zurgo in powerlevel.

SSM may replace a tier-3 aggro critter like Glory-Chaser, Village Messenger, Reckless Waif, etc. but it's not going to compete against the better creatures. It's below Jackal Pup too, which wasn't on your list.

What wtwlf said. At 450, I'm not sure I have room for this. I may cut Glory-Chaser but none of the other cards you mention.

Cheers,
rant

Does anyone have Monastery Swiftspear in an Unpowered list? How has that performed? It doesn't seem like it would be particularly good being a 1 power creature most turns. Additionally, this Soul-Scar doesn't feel very good either for me, in an Unpowered cbue. Too frequently a 1/2 than a 2/3.

Quote from dann14 »

Does anyone have Monastery Swiftspear in an Unpowered list? How has that performed? It doesn't seem like it would be particularly good being a 1 power creature most turns. Additionally, this Soul-Scar doesn't feel very good either for me, in an Unpowered cbue. Too frequently a 1/2 than a 2/3.

It's better than you'd think. Haste is big, and frankly if you don't have a lot of ways to trigger this you probably have a bad red aggressive deck since those decks want the burn as is. I'll happily upgrade it, but, eh, it's OK.

As well as Garruk Relentless, this also plays great with Master of the Wild.

How do people feel about replacing Zurgo Bellstriker with this? I'm trying to eliminate the red 1 drops that can't block well, in order to milk those last few turns to draw the burn you need. What about Stromkirk Noble?

I will probably never cut Zurgo. Stromkirk Noble was my cut for this creature, and I'm happy with the change.

I like Zurgo much better than this card. It beats for more (outside of niche decks) for the same price, meaning you will have to topdeck less burn. It also has haste late game, so it empowers your attacks, without overextending. Zurgo is certainly better to draw late game than both of these cards.

Zurgo >>> Noble > Mage

Zurgo Bellstriker is one of the best aggressive 1-drops in the cube.

I'm just echoing the others at this point, but yeah, don't you dare cut Zurgo if you're supporting an aggro deck in your red section.

Yeah cutting Zurgo seems not-good when '2/1s for R' has been one of the biggest needs for red since, like, forever.

Awesome haha thanks. He's definitely sticking around. I'll be cutting the Noble for a few tests of this guy, but Noble's also been doing good.

I also like Noble, but 360 is a tough spot to be at for him. Frankly I would just play Jackal Pup over it, it's a 2/1 for R and the drawback is fairly irrelevant for the deck it falls in. I think Jackal Pup is better than the mage too, I don't love having two 1/2s with prowess that require me to play in my first main phase or during combat. I get some people hate the Pup but being a 2/1 is pretty strong. Or you could move Cackler since it pretty much makes your black section virtually 53 cards, cut something like Dreadbore even though it's solid, and then have room for whatever you want.

Soul-Scar Mage just isn't good enough to replace any of the solid aggro 1-drops in small cubes.

soul-scar mage tested poorly over here too... recently was cut.

As the resident RDW player in my group, I've not been super impressed with this guy as an aggro support dork. I'll probably give him a few more drafts to prove his worth, but right now, I think I prefer either of the double faced aggro dudes.

I like this card as support for the prowess decks. Had a sweet 2 for 1 the other day where I blocked a 2/2 with this, burned down an x/2. Felt good, and I'm glad that prowess is evergreen now so that we can get more cubeable combat tricks.

I want this secondary effect so badly. Imagine cutting down a Titan or turning Triskelion into... better Triskelion (idk what the hell kind of deck that is, but bare with me). But you are all correct that none of these 1-drops are that cuttable for him... aw nuts.

I was watched Standard in 2017-2018 with Hazoret + Soul-Scar Mage and what I really liked was it made the matchups between red's unfavorable matchup against green and red's favorable matchup against blue both more even and interactive.

I avoided played aggressive decks for the longest time because I hated the feeling of having to alpha strike past attackers or trying to stave off lethal to draw into a burn spell to win the game.

However, I feel in love with playing aggressive decks in draft as they were less about 20 lands/ 40 burn spells but moved more towards 23-24 lands/ aggressive curve from 1-4 that can win early on a good hand but can play into the late game.